For some time I’ve been wanting to write mostly about electric car startups, since I think they can sometimes offer more value than long-established carmakers. Coda Autmotive, for example, is one such example not often mentioned by the specialized press. They only have one product, the Coda Sedan, that they just announced it’ll sell $5,000 cheaper than they first announced, when it will get launched on the market this December.
So they’ll sell the Coda sedan at $39,900, and this is because their new CEO, Phil Murtaugh, has closed a convenient deal with Chinese battery maker Lishen and the other parts suppliers, according to GigaOM’s Katie Fehrenbacher.
The company also increased their car’s battery warranty to 10 years, while most other car manufacturers set it to only 8 years, or 100,000 miles.
As Kevin Czinger says in the following video, the Coda sedan isn’t meant to be a sportscar, so it won’t appeal to the same customer base as the Tesla Roadster, but it’ll somehow compete with the Model S. Not on the price, though. Tesla’s new baby will sell for at least $57,400 for the base 160 miles version. The Coda will have 10 miles less of that, but $20,000 off Tesla’s price tag.
I like Coda from what I’ve seen so far. I hope they succeed making themselves a name among the EV startup pioneers. You can see the sedan’s specs here.
Since it was supposed to be $28,500 when this model then dubbed the Javlon was promised for 2008 by Miles Electric Vehicles, this is not such a great deal. And why would someone buy a brand they’ve never heard of nor can be sure will be around in the near or far future when a comparable car such as the Nissan Leaf is available from a known quantity at a more competitive price? I wonder why the author thinks that Coda is a good example of an electric car start-up that offers more value than the aforementioned long-established carmaker? Looks like they’ve upped their range recently but that remains to be seen and driven. It was closer to the 100-125 range until this reference. I also don’t know why the Coda brand keeps being mentioned in lists of extant electric cars when they keep pushing the release date out quarter after quarter, year after year?