Coda Automotive, a car company you never heard of, has priced the first vehicle they’ll ever sell: the five-passenger all-electric CODA sedan. Yes, not exactly a memorable name, but it’ll come with a price tag you won’t soon forget: $44,900!
The privately held company based in Santa Monica, California, made their pricing announcement this week, setting their Chinese-made vehicle more than $10,000 above the Nissan LEAF and $3,000 more than the Chevrolet Volt. The LEAF is a pure electric car due out later this year; the Volt is an electric car with a backup gas engine.
California Dreaming
Final assembly of the CODA sedan is in California. This four-door all-electric vehicle is expected to deliver a dependable range of 90 to 120 miles per charge. CODA says that they are backing up this vehicle with a three-year / 36,000-mile limited warranty and an eight-year / 100,000-mile limited battery warranty.
The automaker says that they’ve partnered more than 30 companies on four continents to build their first model. No other models have been announced.
The steep price tag will be offset with government credits including a $7,500 federal rebate and, in some states, an additional $5,000 rebate. For California drivers, the price of the CODA sedan will drop to $32,400, but that cost is still more than $10,000 over the price of a fully loaded compact sedan.
EV Dreaming?
In early September 2010, we posed the question here — Should I buy an electric vehicle? We made no mention of the CODA because we didn’t have pricing information at the time.
Assuming that the typical CODA owners drives 15,000 miles annually and averages 30 miles to the gallon, that driver will have saved 500 gallons of gasoline. At $3 per gallon, the annual gas savings is $1500. The cost for plugging in this car may run about $3 per night which means that a car used every day would cost about $1100 to recharge, netting an annual savings of $400.
Likely, owners of the CODA, like other EV owners, won’t ever recoup their investment in the form of savings over a comparable gas model. If gas prices surge to over $4 per gallon, then additional savings will be realized, provided that the price of electricity doesn’t increase in like manner.
EV Ordering
If you’re still interested in getting a CODA, you can reserve your car by plunking down a $499 deposit today.
Source: CODA Automotive
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