Coda Woes Deepen: More Layoffs, Electric-Car Store Closed
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The storm clouds continue to darken over electric-car startup Coda Automotive.
The day after Christmas, the company announced on its Facebook page that it had closed its Coda Experience Center showroom in the Westfield Mall Century City.
Then, last Friday, Coda laid off more staff. That day, the company released the following statement:
On Friday, January 4th, CODA furloughed a number of employees as the Company takes necessary action to bolster its financing and better position the business going forward.
The Company has kept in place a sufficient number of staff to keep the Company operational and remains committed to the continued development and distribution of its products.
During this period, CODA will continue to provide service to its dealers and customers.
While unfortunate, we are confident this temporary action will allow the Company to strategically direct resources towards critical operations and put the Company on a more sustainable path.
Coda said that the Westfield Mall location logged more than 3,500 test drives out of more than 40,000 "meaningful engagements" with visitors.
The 2012 Coda Sedan remains available at three dealerships, in Los Angeles, Irvine, and San Diego.
The additional layoffs come just three weeks after Coda laid off 15 percent of its staff in early December.
At that time, a report in Plug-In Cars said Coda has sold 100 or fewer copies of its battery-electric compact four-door sedan.
The company has never released any sales figures since its car went into production in March.
And without the 18,000-plus depositors of Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA], another electric-car startup, the silence on sales figures is not a good sign.
This past September, Green Car Reports tested the 2012 Coda Sedan and reported that it performed adequately and seemed to deliver a viable 100-mile range in real-world use.
But the cars offered for test drives suffered numerous design flaws that would irritate drivers, not to mention worrisome quality and assembly issues.
Overall, we felt the Coda Sedan would be at a major disadvantage against plug-in electric cars from established brands like Nissan or Chevrolet.
Will Coda survive to fight another day, or will they follow the fate of Think Electric Cars and other small automotive startups?
Leave us your thoughts in the Comments below.
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This is the infancy of the EV age. We need great product such as Tesla S to uphold the image of EVs...
Sad day, another EV initiative bites the dust.
CODA will be lucky to make it past 2013.
Fisker will be lucky to make it past 2014/2015.
Mitsubishi will most likely cancel the i-Miev by 2014.
Oh well, at least that got us the Volt, the car GM realised it needed to do after the EV-1 PR debacle just in case a new goverment coming to power on a platform of "change" might be less inclined to pull the tax payer's purse without proper green credentials. Guess that makes the Volt GM's most profitable car ever.
You need to give it a rest to your hate toward GM's EV-1 program.
It was a freaking 2 seater that was way too expensive for its time. How many 2-seater hybrid are sold recently? How many tiny electric cars sold recently? Less than 1%.
As far as too big to fail, I am NOT here to debate. Toyota and Honda both received bailouts from Japanese government. Ford survived by seeing this coming and mortgaged everything they could, included the famous blue oval. So, the only thing GM didn't do is to mortgage everything.
Sorry to burst your silly bubble, Telsa is assisted by the tax payer money as well.
Unlike you, I don't think substandard EVs should represent EVs in general.
What EV do you drive again?
No doubt with it's deep pockets GM could do an engineering job that was far superior to that of a struggling start up like Coda, but I think a bit of respect is in order for their efforts.
Most of your comment is a bit neither here nor there frankly but trying to suggest that being allowed to have an opinion here is related to claims of EV ownership is really very lame, Xiaolong Li.
Deep pocket?
Or you mean capable engineering team? At the end of the day, it has to design something that is a good product.
I don't care whether it is a from a startup like Tesla or a large auto maker like GM or Toyota. It has to be a good one.
I criticize bad EV/PHEV/EREV equally. You should have seen plenty of critism from me on how terrible CODA, FISKER or PIP are. I also heavily criticized GM's "mild hybrid" as well.
If it is a bad design, I will call it out.
We don't need bad products to give EV bad names anyway.
From everything I read, GM did the Volt program to prove that Tesla is NOT the only company that can do electric cars. And Telsa proved that only Si Valley had the capability to do something new instead of Detriot. In a way, Tesla "forced" GM to revisit the "electric" car.
I am just tired of hearing about EV-1 and all the "historical" perspective. Most of the "historical" perspective was "biased" without taking the cost and customer base into consideration. And please don't bring up the film either...
Can we just move on?
I never said you can't have an opinion. But having an EV or NOT makes a difference to me in respecting your comment on "EV experience". It doesn't mean I won't respect your opinion (if they are good), just your opinion on EV experience. To me, owning an EV and live with it everyday brings out different perspective than just commenting about them on the internet...
EVs/EREV/PHEV aren't ready to be massively adopted yet. Choices are few in between and upfront price premium is high. But many people (less than 1%) are buying it b/c it is a cool technology and offering a chance to push the demand for this technology.
We don't just talk. We put our hard earned money down as well.
It is easier to complain about something that happened 15 years ago. In fact, they got NOTHING to complain about. It was a LEASE program. NO difference from the BMW E program or the Honda E-Fit. (or even Honda's Clarity) Yet, none of them whine about that nearly as much...
If you insist on discrimination I can think of a few criteria that make more sense than claims of EV ownership:
-really having something to add to the discussion
-not engaging in personal attacks against those whose opinion one disagrees with
-being able to make a point that at least makes some sense and is at least somewhat understandable for other readers
-not always promoting the same car or idea in every posting
I can think of a few self declared EV owners on this forum (usually Volts somehow..) whose names wouldn't appear here any more with criteria like that.
Nothing wrong with that but it hardly warrants the whole holier than thou attitude.
No, I never said ownership is a requirement. But pulling out GM's old EV-1 program as an example to bash is tiring. Please spare us with that 15 years old story. It is nonsense anyway since GM never offered the car for sale. If GM did and then took it back, then it would have been different. But it wasn't for sale so let it go.
Honda, BMW has been doing the same with their respective "leasing" program. So why don't you hold them to the same standard?
Here is the reason why I think Volt is an excellent product and will help the spread for EVs.
1. Its EV range is as real to pure EV as it gets. No other EREV/PHEV is even close to it in that aspect. That is why GM insist it as an EREV.
3. Widespread of Volt will help the demand of public infrastructure.
4. Volt is designed from ground up as an EV first, extender second. It has one of the BEST battery management system and one of the BEST EV performance beside Tesla.
5. Volt is affordable enough for family to use it as "ONLY" car yet still minimize gas usage.
But I also care about performance. No other electric offers that kind of performance.
Just so you know, I am on the list of "first notify" list from my local Chevy Dealer for the upcoming Spark EV. Why? B/c it will be the fastest EV beside Tesla, even beating the Volt.
EV-1 would also best just about all EVs today beside Tesla. (matching Volt's EV performance) So, you should complain about all those so called EV companies for making such poor performing EVs. I have high standards for EV. We don't need more of those "slow golf carts" to ruin the EV image.
I bought my Volt so did all my friends
Cruze is cheaper. But it doesn't drive as nicely as Volt. For $33k, I could have bought a hybrid or ICE car that is faster but I love the driving dynamic of the Volt and I am willing to put up with its smaller size and upfront cost.
EV owners deserve better respect from me b/c they have "personal" experience to share. Their opinions are just from hearsay or stuffs that they read. They know the downside as well as the upside. They LIVE with their decisions, NOT just talking about it.
I respect John Brigg's comment. He doesn't own an EV yet. But he doesn't bring up 15 yr old EV-1 none-story either.
Talk is cheap. In fact, Pip was running $199/month lease. So does the Leaf. Feel free to join us in "minimizing" the sacrifice then.
Also, as GCR have stated in their articles, Volt owners have "gas avoidance anxiety". They charge far more frequently than other EVs. They make efforts to avoid using gas. I do too.
I go out of ways to do so. I promote it at work. Asking work places to install more chargers for all EVs. Setting more EV spaces for people to use.
I bought the Volt b/c I need a car that can go 130 miles and I can't afford Tesla S
CODA is a poor design as well as a poor effort. It took the "easy" way out. From the start, it looked like a "green scam" to me. No different from Solyndra in this case. Its design wasn't unique, its efficiency was poor. Its platform is terrible and safety is questionable. In what part of their effort was exceptional? Please enlighten me...
I don't give out credits for "trying". It is either good or bad. Efforts mean nothing in a competitives auto world.
About GM's behaviour in the EV-1 debacle: the decisive way GM moved against its own spawn carting them off to the crusher under police protection wasn't very smart from a PR perspective and is felt by many people as the automotive equivalent of genocide and the problem with genocides: you never hear the end of it, no matter how much the perpetrators and their fans wish it and try to spin things differently. So expect the theme to come up occasionally on this forum and try not to freak out every time it does.
So, can we just let it go? From today's perspective, EV-1 did its part. GM learned a lot from EV-1's program. Its induction motor technology are being used in other cars from Tesla to Volt. Let us just close that chapter and move on.
You might disagree with the Voltec technology. I have always said that it was a "bridge" technology.
They would have been smart to make a sexy hybrid, like the Honda CR-Z butter better. Than I would buy.
Have an opinion?Join the conversation!