Video The Coda Electric Car at the Detroit International Auto Show (Video) 284
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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.
6.6 kW/240VAC input (Score:5, Insightful)
Business Case Analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Standard arguments (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
I think Tesla maybe has better business model (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Powered by... Coal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Business Case Analysis (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget that the electric car can't do much other than be a metro runabout.
Your truck will go places (not even gnarly off-road terrain, think plain old rutted roads) that will have the small, high MPG vehicle's axles for lunch and the oil pan for dessert.
I fear that you have too much sense. There is a push to force people to buy high MPG cars... but I'd rather keep a paid off pickup and pay the higher gas cost than have to deal with a $600+ car payment. MPG-wise, but pound foolish. Plus, it takes a lot of energy to make a car, far more than the difference in MPG between a truck and a new subcompact.
Re:Electric Charging Stations (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But why? (Score:5, Insightful)
$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.
Re:Standard arguments (Score:3, Insightful)
Mostly agree, but the market for used hybrids (at least in the US) remains strong, and I don't expect plug-ins to be different in the short to mid term.
The Smug Poor want to flaunt their eco-credentials nearly as much as the Smug Rich, and it'll take a while before everyone knows someone whose cousin bought one of those damn electronical cars which then crapped its $7K battery all over the floor the next month.
Of course, in civilised nations, if we want "eco", we buy a small turbodiesel returning 88 of Her Brittanic Majesty's Miles per Greenwich Gallon on either DERV or chip fat (or 73mpg in Colonial jibber-speak), and that isn't packed full of rare earths that have been strip mined by Chinese orphans, or powered by a coal fired power plant in the next valley.
Eco isn't just about tailpipe emissions, but it'll be a long, hard slog to convince the 'mentals of that.
Re:Electric Charging Stations (Score:5, Insightful)
my second car is a 95 neon that gets almost 40 mpg when the motor or transmission breaks I go to the wrecking yard and buy a used one for $100 to $200. One sometimes two Sundays and it is back on the road and I take the old motor to be melted for scrap, fluids are recycled, rubber is recycled and when its time for another neon (neons are my car of choice due to parts availability and ease of repair) my old one goes the the wrecker and I get $75 a ton for the scrap. Now which is more environmentally responsible my neon or a super expensive EV that most people can not afford.
The more environmentally responsible is a car that you don't have to change the motor / transmission every year.
You should try a good car for a change, maybe a Toyota or a Honda. I've run a Tercel to more than 600,000 km on the original engine/transmission.
Those Neons are junk, even when new.