$45K Coda Electric Sedan Will Beat Volt, Tesla, Etc, To Market Page 2

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A special challenge would be crash safety. Thanks to YouTube, Chinese cars are fighting a PR disaster in Europe as they battle the reputation of being highly unsafe in crash tests.

A mix of Japanese design and European engineering did the trick for Coda. Its base vehicle is a Hafei Saibao 3—a four-door sedan built in Harbin, China, that sells for $12,000 with a gasoline engine.

The state-owned Hafei Automotive Group made roughly 240,000 vehicles in 2007, and the Saibao used Mitsubishi components. Italian design and engineering firm Pininfarina had styled it, and certified it for sale in Europe--which has stringent crash standards.

Making it move

With a vehicle identified,  Coda needed a battery cell partner. The car's lithium-ion battery pack has roughly 37 kilowatt-hours of capacity, operating at 333 Volts.

Its lithium iron phosphate cells come from another state-owned company, Tianjin Lishen Battery, which assembles the packs and ships them to Hafei for assembly into the cars.

Coda owns the intellectual property around the pack design, the battery management system, and the integration of components like the regenerative brakes and stability control software.

President and CEO Kevin Czinger  joined what is now Coda a year ago, after stints as a senior executive at Goldman Sachs & Co., the Webvan Group, and Global Signal. He was also active at Benchmark Capital and Fortress Private Equity Funds.

Czinger, who had done business in China while at investment bank Goldman Sachs, hired a major European automotive consultant it isn't yet identifying. That firm has worked to ensure that the new Coda sedan is reliably engineered and manufactured.

Every aspect of the car has been vetted, with hundreds of design, engineering, and process changes made to the base car. It has passed various crash tests, and the certification process continues.

Wanted: Green California customers

By limiting their early buyers to Californians, Coda's Czinger says, it feels it can attract not only first adopters but also the much larger audience of “environmentally conscious pragmatists.”

These professional, middle- and upper-income families are aware of issues around energy security and the environment. Some of them will take the next step, and want to make a statement by using a zero-emission vehicle for their daily travel--even if they have to pay a bit more.

Coda plans to work with customers intensively, to ensure that they have what Czinger called “a favorable environment for an EV”—a house close to a Miles service center, a predictable routine, and few climatic extremes.

“They know it’s the first step in a revolutionary change,” says Czinger, “and they won’t have to sacrifice any utility or safety.”

The sales experience, Czinger says proudly, will work with the potential buyers to understand their travel patterns—and offer “full disclosure” about range limitations.

Coda electric sedan

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Coda electric sedan

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Coda electric sedan

Enlarge Photo

Coda electric sedan

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[SOURCES: Coda Automotive, HybridCars.com]