Coda electric sedan looks to plug in to U.S. market

There’s some competition for the Tesla Model S. Santa Monica, Calif.-based Coda Automotive unveiled its first electric car on Wednesday, and it’s no golf cart.

The Chinese-made, four-door, five-seat sedan has everything from Bluetooth and navigation to an iPod dock and a finished interior. The car will sticker for $45,000 when it goes on sale in fall 2010, but federal and state rebates could lower that to the mid-$30,000 range.

Speaking of range, the Coda sedan will get between 90 and 120 miles of what the carmaker calls “real-world range” from its 728 prismatic lithium-ion batteries. Recharges take six hours on 220 volts. Top speed is a freeway-capable 80 mph.

We rode in the passenger seat for a few blocks near Coda headquarters and found the car did, in fact, accelerate, turn and brake, so it’s not just vaporware. It accelerated pretty smoothly, too. Our technician driver said the pedal software allows a progressive action to keep the wheels from spinning on launch. We couldn’t tell how it felt to steer but all systems seemed to function just fine.

The car was a prototype, so it might not be fair to judge the fit and finish we saw inside, but it was certainly ahead of that found on so-called neighborhood electric vehicles we’ve driven.

Perhaps the most innovative thing about the Coda is its provenance. The design began life as a home-market Mitsubishi sedan that was then licensed to Chinese carmaker Hafei. Hafei makes an internal combustion version of this car, named Saibao, for sale in China.

Rather than start from the ground up, Coda designed an electric powertrain to insert on the Saibao assembly line, along with about 95 changes to the chassis, thus saving about $1 billion dollars right off the bat. Coda says that the car has passed all U.S. government crash standards and Coda expects it to get–depending on who you ask–four or five stars in the NCAP test.

Coda is a separate entity that grew out of Miles Electric Vehicles. Coda makes highway speed-capable EVs while Miles continues to manufacture low-speed EVs for sales to fleets.

The batteries come from a joint venture with Chinese battery-maker Lishen, a major supplier of lithium-ion cells for computers and cell phones. The chemistry includes iron instead of cobalt in the lithium mix for increased battery life.

“I think five or 10 years from now, we’ll get cars with 1 million miles on the original battery pack,” said Kevin Czinger, president and CEO of Coda.

“Our thing is to create a mass-market car and still be profitable,” added Czinger. “We have a price that is a fraction of what anybody else can do.”

autoweek

Rolls-Royce V-8 (1905)

The Rolls-Royce V-8 was a car produced by Rolls-Royce in 1905 intended to compete with the then popular electric cars used in towns.

Claude Johnson, business partner of C. S. Rolls suggested there would be a market for an internal combustion engined car that could take on the electric car market. To do this it would have to be silent, free of vibration and smoke free. The engine would also have to be mounted under the car to give the appearance of a town brougham and so needed to be very shallow. To do this Henry Royce designed a completely new engine in the form of a 90 degree, side valve, 3,535 cc (215.7 cu in), V-8. To reduce fumes the then common drip lubrication was replaced by a pressure system. The power also seems to have been limited to maximise smooth running.

Two body styles were proposed, a Landaulet par Excellence to attack the town electric market and the Legalimit which was governed so as not to allow the then United Kingdom speed limit of 20 mph (32 km/h) to be exceeded. The Legalimit had the engine conventionally mounted at the front but under a very low bonnet. Only one example of the V-8 was sold, a Legalimit (chassis number 40518) to Sir Alfred Hamsworth. This was later taken back by the factory. All three cars then seem to have been used as works cars or for customer visits. Rolls ordered three more chassis for delivery in 1906 but there is no evidence these were ever made.

Although the car cannot be judged as being a success, lessons were learned from the engine design that were later used on the six cylinder models that made the Rolls-Royce name.

The V-8 is the only car model made by Rolls-Royce of which no example survives.

Manufacturer
Rolls-Royce Ltd

Production
1905
3 made

Engine(s)
3535 cc V-8

Transmission(s)
three speed

Wheelbase
Landaulette 90 inches (2286 mm)
Legalimit 106 inches (2692 mm)

Designer
Sir Henry Royce