I attended an energy efficiency day at SAP’s Palo Alto facilities and there I met Brian Patnoe of CODA Automotive. He was there showing CODA’s new all electric car so I asked him to tell me about it to camera. Here’s a transcript of the conversation and above the video.
Tom Raftery: Hi everyone! Welcome to GreenMonk TV. I?m at SAP headquarters today and I?m talking to Bryan Patnoe of CODA Automotive. Bryan, you?ve got half a car and a full prototype.
Brian Patnoe: Yeah.
Tom Raftery: Tell me a little bit about CODA Automotive and your half car.
Brian Patnoe: Great, I?d love to. Well, CODA is an all-American all-electric car company. We?re based in Santa Monica, California and we?re very excited to be here to be showing this car.
This car was just shown at the LA Auto Show and we will have this at the Consumer Electronic Show. We?ll be in the GE booth and we?ll also be showing this soon at NASA at the Kennedy Space Center. So, we have a lot of movement, a lot of high-level of interest. What makes our car unique and different – it?s all about the battery.
We have a 34 Kw battery, lithium ion, which is 40% larger than our competition, for instance the LEAF and we also charge twice as fast. We have a 6.6 Kw on board charger. So, it?s very fast. You can charge this car from zero to 100% state of charge in less than six hours, just under 6 hours.
What also makes us very unique is that we have an Active Thermal Management System and the reason why that?s important is because batteries are like people. We like to be kept at a certain temperature, and so if a battery gets too cold or gets too hot, it looses some of its performance and so this car will run at a top speed of 81 miles an hour, but the range of this car is 90 to 120 miles all-weather all-season, which we think is very important.
Tom Raftery: Even on the highway driving?
Brian Patnoe: Highway driving, 80 miles an hour, air conditioning on, you can get that kind of range, sure. The reason why this is important is because most commuters live within — there?s all kinds of statistics out there, but more than half live and drive within 40 miles of work and so what we envision is that people will charge at home and then they?ll drive to the office and they?ll have a Level 2 charger there and they can charge as well.
CODA Automotive's all-electric car
You can also charge as well with an opportunity charger, you can plug it into the wall, a standard wall socket and that?s it. The car will be available for delivery to consumers in the early part of the second half of next year. So, I think in the June, July time frame?ish and we are excited to be bringing this car to market.
Right now its about 40% US content, which is very exciting All Tier-1 suppliers, BorgWarner, Delphi, Lear, UQM, very, very top Tier-1 companies that are supplying components for us and like in today?s market all cars are globally sourced and all cars are part of global collaboration where they?re sourced from all over the world.
The other thing I like to tell you is that we?ve applied for a DoE grant and we?re very excited and we?re waiting by the phone. If we get permission to move forward we?ll be putting a battery facility in Columbus, Ohio.
So, actually we?ll be building this battery in Columbus. If that happens then this car will be 85-90% US content.
Tom Raftery: Okay and how much?
Brian Patnoe: This car has an MSRP of $44,085. After rebates in California you?ve got your federal tax incentive, you?ve got your $5,000 California State Incentive. So, you can take $12,500 off the pricing fuel of the car, and the operating cost of this car is it?s about $0.02 a mile.
Tom Raftery: That?s because it?s running on electricity and I assume also things like you don?t have oil changes.
Brian Patnoe: That?s correct. It has about one seventh of the moving parts of a normal internal combustion engine. So, you?ve got a big motor, you?ve got a inverter, you?ve got some components, but you don?t have the normal types of components on it – the normal ICE. Think of fan belts, alternators, compressors that type of thing.
Tom Raftery: Yeah, okay superb. Bryan thanks a million for showing us about CODA.
Brian Patnoe: Great. Thank you.
