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The Coda Electric Car at the Detroit International Auto Show (Video)
Last week Timothy Lord looked at the Tesla Model S. He also took a quick look at the CODA electric car. Like Tesla, CODA is based in California. Like Tesla, CODA is building purely electric, "plug-in" cars. But unlike Tesla, CODA is making a bland but practical sedan that can go up to 150 miles on a charge and costs about $37,000. That's not exactly a Kia-competitive price, even though Tim says it looks kind of like a Kia. But it's 100% electric and costs less than a Tesla -- really, hardly more than a Nissan Leaf. And it has a fully-usable back seat and a decent-sized trunk. And unlike the Nissan Leaf, it's made right here in the good old USA.
Final assemby is in the USA. Most of the chassis is made in China, and the rest of the parts are sourced from various places around the world.
Unlike, say, a Hyundai which is almost entirely made in the US.
The car is made in China. All that CODA does is install a UQM motor (American made with Chinese parts), Chinese made electronics and a chinese made battery.
This car is 99% Chinese.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The malls/some stores around here have special parking spots for hybrid/electric cars that are closer to the entrance than the handicapped spots in some cases. .... Driving an EV does not make you more worthy of a parking spot than anyone else.
It does. You/everyone is paying a couple bucks per foot for that buried heavy gauge wire, so the closer the charger is to the entrance, the less you are paying the electrician, who is paid by the mall owner, who is paid by the shopkeeper, who is paid by ... you.
So its in everyones financial best interests to have the charger as close to the building as possible. Even if you drive a gas guzzler.
The only people who benefit by putting it further away are the copper wire manufacturers.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
No, it's in everyone's financial best interest for plug-in electric car owners to charge their car at home, and not soak the local shop owner for the electricity their cars consume.
Here's an interesting article on the growing number of charging stations from the WSJ last October:
With less than 20,000 EVs on the road today, that works out to over $6,500 per EV, and since the subsidies only pay for a part of the expense, which can run $2,000 - 7,000 per charger, it's safe to say we have at least two chargers for every EV in the country.
Ken
All a 240V plug is, is two 120V plugs that share a ground, on two separate circuits from the panel. Adapters that combine them at the outlets cost $50 each retail or less. An electrician will charge something like $100 to run a new pair of 120V circuits from your panel if necessary. At 6.6KW, 240V means 27.5A, so each 120V line needs only 30A. Which means the whole thing is exactly like installing an electric oven, which is a pretty common little project.
Once there's more than one or two plugin cars in a parking lot the owners will install the 240V outlets. Because they'll attach a meter that charges more than they pay the grid. A grid that doesn't charge $0.33:KWh; the NYC Con Ed rate is highest in the country at $0.21:KWh. And that's if you don't have Time Of Use (TOU) rates, which charge under $0.15:KWh at night and through the Winter, which is when you'd charge your car at home.
So in fact the economics of plugin cars makes a lot of sense. Which is why many thousands have already been sold. Of course as that number turns to millions the grid needs upgrades for the switch in power distribution from gas to electric, even though at greater efficiency (fewer source joules per mile travelled). But that problem isn't here yet, and the solutions are already in the works (including decentralized generation, like onsite where the charging happens).
I don't know where you're getting your numbers from. Is there some oil corp chain email going around?
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make install -not war