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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.
I went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast this past weekend. Oddly enough, they had three electric car charging stations near the front entrance. I had to laugh because in all three parking spaces was parked a gas guzzler. For the concept to work, you'd need to instate laws to ticket non-electric vehicles or put the spaces so far away that fat people would stay away from them. Unfortunately, you only need an IQ of about 50 to drive and absolutely no manners whatsoever, so it's going to be a difficult problem to solve.
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.
And if you buy one you are going to need to hire an electrician. And if you rent or live in a condo/apartment try finding a 240v plug in the parkade. Or a landlord that will let you install one. And power in 15c a kW/h plus transmission charges 33c per kW/h.
Let's compare. At 15 MPG for my 30 mile commute, that $14/day in gas. At 48 work weeks a year, that's $1680 a year in gasoline for my beat up, unstoppable pickup. Back of the envelope math says about $650/mo in payments for the $37K car at 2%. 20 years to pay off if electricity is free? Yes, I'm using 30 years of data that shows that the price of gasoline is pretty constant, but also ignoring the whole PG&E assraping. There's a reason that the average age of a vehicle on the road is growing. That beat up old pickup, at $75/fillup is making me rich.
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.
Well lets get the standard arguments out of the way so newer, more interesting discussions can happen
1) It ONLY GOES 150 MILES? I always drive 151 miles per trip, even if its only to the corner store I drive around the block 604 times because I love to drive! Why my commute is over 5 hours per day, each way, because I'm a True American (TM) and you "30 minute commute" people are wimps, democrats, terrorists, or whatever..
2) If it can't charge in 5 minutes its dead to me. I only sleep in 3 hour shifts before moving to a new location because the T9000 is after me, so it would never get a chance to charge and I only travel to and from places that have no AC power service because otherwise my tinfoil hat sparks excessively.
3) One model vehicle cannot meet the needs of all buyers, therefore all electric vehicles are useless, because one model of gasoline car meets all human needs. What you say, there are more than one model of gas vehicle? Oh.
4) It doesn't work too well below -40 degrees C/F so I can't buy it. Sure, I live in southern Florida, but I'm worried about resale value. Oh you say my gas vehicle doesn't work too well at -40 either? So what, everyone knows that, I just felt the need to point this out about electrical cars, because I'm sure none of you lowly serfs would think of that yourselves.
5) My gas car's SLI battery was carefully engineered to fail in 3 years to maximize corporate profits, and surprise, surprise, it fails every 3 years. I'm sure an electric car will fail in 3 years too, and I don't care if the average Prius battery was engineered to last the life of the car, and in fact it does last the life of the car, you can't force me to think so I won't. Nahh naahhh nahhhhhh! I don't believe in engineering and you shouldn't either.
6) I will not be satisfied until an automated robot tentacle snakes out of the wall and plugs itself into the charger socket, mostly because I want to watch youtube videos of what the tentacle inserts in women wearing miniskirts. I don't care if everyone north of the mason dixon line already has a block heater and battery heater and battery trickle charger and they perfectly successfully use it every time it gets below zero, because I'm certain no one will ever be able to plug a car in when they park, after all, I don't, so no one in the whole universe every has, can, or will.
7) What is the charger connector going to be, there is no standard. I don't care if there actually is a perfectly good deployed standard which I could find on wikipedia if I wanted, I just like to post this every singe time there is an electric car article. Also, did you know there is no standard low voltage DC connector? Oh wait, there is. Oh how I love to post this over and over.
8) Thousands of american military personnel have died for oil, and its disrespectful of their memory not to burn as much gasoline as humanly possible, after all you don't want their relatives to think they died for nothing. My Chinese imported yellow support the troops ribbon sticker on the trunk of my 8 MPG SUV absolves me of all guilt, much like purchasing a pre-reformation indulgence.
I think that'll do it, does anyone have anything NEW to offer to the standard lineup of /. electric car stories?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It seems to me the problem with trying to create a new technology sedan for the "everyman" is that, in order to get "everyman" pricing, you need the kinds of economies of scale you just can't get when you make 10,000 or 12,000 cars.
I think that GM made a huge mistake with the Volt. I love the idea of a volt - a plugin hybrid that uses electricity till it can't, then uses gas when necessary.
The problem is, it seems they made a car with no glamour or mystique to it. If you're going to only make 10,000 vehicles and they are going to be more expensive than most people can afford, then just go ahead and make it a luxury car. The volt should have been a Cadillac, not a Chevy. It should have had lots of interior luxury and beautiful exterior that was to die for. Maybe it should have cost $50,000+.
GM should have done everything it could to make it the year's "It Car", getting tv, movie, music and athletic celebrities, the children of the rich, and hipster-CEO's to buy it as a green conspicuous consumption item. Then, use those profits to ramp up the economies of scale. Meanwhile, the "average joe" sees all the "cool rich people" driving them, and maybe has increased desire for one of them.
That seems to be the model that Tesla is pursuing. I think GM could have had more clout to get the Volt to be an "It Car" if they had pursued that strategy, but since they didn't, I wish Tesla luck.
Smyrna, TN
That's the town right next to where I live. They've had billboards up in the area talking about how the Leaf is coming to Smyrna and how awesome it's going to be to live in the same area as they are made in. However, as someone pointed out. Pretty much the only thing they will do there is put the pieces together. All the parts will be sourced from elsewhere.
Total impact? Well they aren't opening a new wing (you can tell when they are doing that because Nissan Blvd and Enon Springs road becomes a nightmare with all the heavy construction. Traffic usually backs up onto US 41/70S (aka Murfreesboro Road). So no one new is getting hired at the plant. Instead I think they are phasing out some sort of truck they use to make. So no new construction, no new hire, pretty much the Nissan Leaf has brought zero new jobs... Oh I take that back! CSX hired sixty some odd workers for about nine months to expand the capacity of the rail yard at the Nissan plant.
However, aside from the job issue. The local malls (Stones River, The Avenue, etc...) have added EV charge stations to welcome our new Leaf overlords. So I'm guessing that's good that we are suddenly going from zero EV charging stations to now twenty-six, three packs, and counting.
However I will say that Nissan is doing something with their site in the back. You can see that they are leveling the ground from Florence Rd but there has yet to be any structures added. So more likely we'll be seeing little white canopies going up soon or we'll see the start of, hopefully, a new building.
As long as we understand electric cars are powered by Coal! Until we figure out that that wind, water, corn, grass, and geothermal power will never meet the demand for powering our cars. That Nuclear power is the only practical green solution. Electric cars will not reduce pollution no there own. None the less electric cars do allow for alternative power solutions. And we will run out of petrol sooner or later.
$37k for a car that can travel *up to* 150 miles on a full charge? My diesel fiat cost less than half that, can go *up to* 400 miles on a tank of the dirty stuff and when I put my foot down it goes like a scalded cat (gotta love turbos).
150 miles means that most commuters never need to charge it anywhere except at home. They just park it in the charging spot each night and it's ready to go in the morning. No more visits to petrol stations to fill up the car, except when you're making a long trip.
Still not seeing the market viability for full electric cars amongst the real road warriors (30k+ miles p.a.) who, let's face it, are the group of drivers that pollute most.
Per capita? Sure. In total? I doubt it. The people doing their daily 30 mile commute each way outnumber the road warriors by a huge amount. Get them all into electric cars, and you can easily switch the energy source to nuclear, solar, or whatever.
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