The Internet has a penchant for drama, and so it was yesterday that a story made the rounds that electric car maker CODA had announced “massive” layoffs…of 50 people. Ok, maybe not so massive, but things are still looking grim for the struggling EV maker and their bland sedan.
Plugin Cars was the first to report the layoffs of 50 people, or 15% of CODA’s workforce, most of them reportedly from the sales and marketing department. I think some bloggers really need to tone down the hyperbole though; last week CitiBank announced that they would be laying off 11,000 people. That is a massive layoff. 50 people? Not so much. Let’s keep it in perspective people.
Granted, 50 people is 15% of CODA’s total workforce, and executives came with with quotes about “rightsizing” the company. I don’t know many successful automakers that have less than 500 employees though, and with sales of the CODA sedan reportedly stalled around just 100 units, it looks like the beginning of the end for California-based CODA despite calls for an expanded dealer network and supposed pre-orders of 1,000 cars.
Not that there was ever that much promise for CODA to begin with. A boring, Chinese-built body coupled with a high sticker price and almost no viral “buzz” meant CODA was facing an uphill struggle to begin with. Despite being rated at 88 miles per charge, sales have been slow to non-existent. Hell, who even knew CODA had a marketing department? I haven’t seen one advertisement about it, and the only interesting thing written about CODA in the past year was a concept sketch found last week.
In another six months, CODA will probably join the likes of Think and Aptera in the EV graveyard of good intentions.
Source: Plugin Cars
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