Coda Automotive Breaks the Mold On Traditional Car Manufacturing And Sales

The Coda EV Sedan



From The Columbus Dispatch:

Coda Automotive is proposing more than just a new technology for cars. The company has a new business model for manufacturing and selling its all-electric sedan.

Kevin Czinger, Coda's CEO, presented his plan yesterday at Moving Ahead 2010, a conference at Ohio State University about the future of transportation.

Although his company is based in southern California, he is considering central Ohio for a battery plant. That possibility, and the 1,000 jobs that would come with it, has led to an aggressive marketing effort by state and local leaders.

"We are looking at this not as a new-car-model introduction, but as a new-technology introduction," Czinger said, speaking to several hundred academics and industry leaders.

The new technology is a lithium-ion battery that provides enough power to allow the sedan to exceed 120 miles on a charge.

All the processes surrounding the battery are set up for flexibility and low cost, he said.

The vehicle's body will be assembled in China at a leased plant. The partially built car will be shipped to California for final assembly.

This approach means the company won't need to pay to open an assembly plant, reducing startup costs.

At first, the sedan will be for sale only in California. And this won't be a typical auto dealership. The company plans to have a single store in Los Angeles County, plus seven other locations across the state where customers can go for test drives.

Instead of a service department, Coda will contract with Firestone to have technicians trained to do warranty work at 75 Firestone retail locations.

The cars will have a three-year, 36,000-mile warranty on all components and an eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty on the battery.

Much like the plan for manufacturing, the retail model has a very low cost and will allow the company to slowly ramp up sales.

Czinger used the analogy of the "Genius Bar" at Apple retail stores, where experts help customers in a low-pressure environment.

The company hasn't determined the vehicle's cost, although preliminary estimates are in the $30,000 to $35,000 range. During the next five years, Coda hopes to push the price below $30,000 and get a longer mileage range on a single charge of the battery.

Initially, the market for electric cars will be a small number of early adopters, Czinger said. The cars will be used mainly for commuting and for corporate fleets; production next year is estimated at 15,000 vehicles.

Within five years, though, Czinger hopes to make inroads in the larger market.

Czinger is a Cleveland-area native. He previously worked for Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, and Bertelsmann AG, a media company.

Coda started last year, after several years as part of Miles Electric Vehicles, a maker of low-speed vehicles.

All-electric vehicles are one of several technologies looking to gain traction with customers.

Jerry Hutton, director of the Hocking College Energy Institute in Logan, thinks that the cost of gasoline will ultimately decide how quickly the market grows for these alternatives.

"The only green that people worry about is the green in their pocket," he said.

Hutton sees all-electric vehicles as one of several appealing prospects; others are vehicles that run on natural gas and gasoline-electric hybrids.

Coda executives have said they plan to decide in the next month where to build their battery plant. The company is also considering sites in California and North Carolina.