Friday, September 21, 2012

2012 Coda Sedan drive review

2012 Coda Sedan drive review
What is it?
There is a place for a modest electric vehicle. A workaday electric vehicle. An electric vehicle for the vegan who doesn't feel the need to engage in bumper-sticker politics. An electric vehicle that gets one from place to place with not a modicum of fuss and engenders minimal range anxiety.
Coda aims to build that electric vehicle. So they engineered a very fine battery, a lithium-iron phosphate (LiFePO4) unit they believe in so much that they've tagged it with a 10-year/100,000-mile warranty. Then they took said battery and stuck it in the floor of a rather homely Chinese car.
They're a thoughtful group of auto-industry vets, these Coda people, and they've rallied around a sensible cry—dependable range. The EPA rates the Coda sedan at 88 miles on a charge. A Coda engineer once hypermiled one to 160. The company says 100 miles on a charge is absolutely within the realm of the average driver, and based on a day tooling around Los Angeles using the A/C rather liberally and paying scant attention to miserly driving habits, we have no reason to doubt their claim.
What's it like to drive?
Based on the aging Chinese-built Hafei Sabao, the Coda sedan's a curious mix of the excellent and the thoughtlessly janky. One benefit of basing the car on an older platform is that the out-of-vogue concept of cabin visibility is still in play. The low beltline allowed us our preferred motoring posture, left elbow perched on the window sill. As such, we didn't notice one of the bigger ergonomic complaints about the Coda—that the door-mounted armrests are mounted exceptionally low, even for people of more diminutive stature.
Coda clearly put most of their effort into the powertrain, and it shows. A 0-to-60-mph time of 9.5 seconds doesn't sound like any great shakes, especially when Elon Musk is touting the Porsche-trouncing benefits of electric propulsion, but the reality is that the power level is perfectly adequate for around-town motoring. The Coda packs a joyful midrange punch. Anywhere between 25 and 70 mph, dipping into the throttle produces an accelerative sensation akin to a turbocharged mill that's constantly spooled up.
The chassis favors ride over handling, but it's not utterly useless in a corner, as the underslung battery pack keeps the center of gravity low. With 221 lb-ft routed through the front wheels, one would expect a healthy dollop of torque steer. Said dollop is not nearly as pronounced as one might expect. It's more like a smidge.
It's the controls that really undo the machine. Today's hybrids and EVs generally feature a nearly seamless transition between regenerative braking and hydraulic actuation of the discs and/or drums. They've become so refined that the process is practically wholly linear. The Coda, however, suffers from a nonintuitive hump where the discs start to grab. Over the course of a day's driving, we never really got a handle on stopping the car fluidly.
Behavior of the sort may have been acceptable in the early days of regenerative systems, but given that cars like the Tesla Model S and theToyota Camry Hybrid manage the transition so wonderfully, the Coda comes off as homebrewed and underbaked.
The console-mounted rotary gear selector is another sore point. With no mechanical goings-on to hint at what drive mode we'd just engaged, we found ourselves repeatedly dropping the Coda into neutral when we were looking for forward motion. It's something one would get used to quickly enough, we imagine, but the fact that it's not as intuitive as it could be illustrates that, as serious as Coda may be about battery technology, they suffer from an acute lack of seriousness about actual motoring.
We never really came to grips with the steering, either. The recurring sense was that the steering shaft had to be some manner of hard rubber extrusion. The cheaper Mitsubishi i, in contrast, has excellent steering, tweaked by the same engineer responsible for the helm of the sticks-to-your-face Lancer Evolution.
On the bright side, the optional Alpine stereo sounds pretty good, and the smart battery packaging means that the trunk is free, clear and usable. Take that, BMW ActiveE.
Do I want one?
High points aside, the Coda is about as much of an automotive penalty box as one can find in the current crop of EVs. The Leaf and i offer funky styling and the reputation of known manufacturers. The Ford Focus Electric even manages to add a dose of handsome to the basic car—a machine that's already among the nicer vehicles in the C-segment. The Model S features solid styling and a general sense that Tesla really sweated every detail when it comes to the feel of their automobile.
Coda put all their eggs in the battery's basket. We'll give the battery a good grade based on our experience and the industry-leading warranty. As for the rest of the rest of the car? Might we kindly suggest they put their battery in something else? Coda's next vehicle is being developed in conjunction with a different Chinese partner, Great Wall. Perhaps they'll have the kinks worked out by then, but with the current sedan as the small company's only offering, we'd recommend that eco-intenders either sacrifice some range, spend more money or grit their green teeth and purchase a plug-in.
2012 Coda Sedan
Base Price: $38,145
As-Tested Price: $39,640
Drivetrain: 31-kWh battery pack; 134-hp, 221-lb-ft electric motor; one-speed automatic
Curb Weight: 3,670 lb
Fuel Economy (EPA): 73 mpg-e
Range (EPA): 88 mi

2012 Coda Sedan drive review
2012 Coda Sedan drive review
2012 Coda Sedan drive review
2012 Coda Sedan drive review
2012 Coda Sedan drive review
2012 Coda Sedan drive review

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