Although Tesla does not officially release its numbers month after month, the HybridCars.com Dashboard estimated 1,000 North American Model S sales in January to the Volt’s 1,140, and in February Tesla might have sold around 1,400 or more compared to the Volt’s 1,626.

A valid question now is whether March could actually see Tesla take a number-one sales spot in the budding U.S. plug-in car market.

Last week, Tesla’s George Blankenship, vice president, worldwide sales and ownership experience, divulged the company has been at full production capacity since December, and for three weeks prior to his blog post, 500 Model S units were being sold weekly. So far, these are all U.S. sales, and Tesla won’t be delivering outside the U.S. for maybe a couple more months.

Blankenship said he expected another record week to follow, which would mean a rate of around 2,000 or more per month.

Last year Chevrolet had a string of 2,000-plus-unit months in the U.S., and one just shy of 3,000, but the Volt costs around $40,000 more or less before subsidies. Including all fees, the Model S costs easily twice to three times that in the 85-kwh version, and for a start up selling a new technology at such a premium price, its performance has been noteworthy, and a 2,000-unit month would be impressive indeed.

In fact, if Tesla had sold 2,000 units in February, it would have been America’s top-selling plug-in car. It’s not believed this was the case, but it could well be this month.

And to further qualify the Model S sales performance, it also competes well against other mainstream hybrids and certainly other luxury segment hybrids and regular luxury cars.

If it had sold 2,000 last month, that would have placed it number seven out of over 40 U.S. market hybrids – significantly ahead of every German, Japanese and American-made luxury hybrid, and slotted between the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid that sold 1,441 units in February, and the Toyota Prius v, which sold 2,543.

Not hurting things a bit for Tesla is the stacked-up waiting list it began accruing some time ago. It has thousands of buyers waiting their turn in line which means it will sell all it can produce until that list starts to dwindle, assuming it does.

GM does have more production capacity, and for the past couple months built around 3,000 per month, but some of these were export-bound Chevy and Holden Volts, and Opel and Vauxhall Amperas.

Further, GM does have more volume potential for its Voltec variants, being cars with a lower price barrier to entry.

Nonetheless, Tesla has been giving the Volt all it can handle of late, and so we shall see if it actually is top dog this month. We know the number for GM to beat is somewhere around 2,000.

And even if the Volt does meet or exceed this, this could be a third month for Tesla to rank second-best selling electrified car in America.

Not bad for a new electric car pushing six figures. Not bad at all.

The post Will Tesla Model S Be America’s Best-Selling Plug-in Car in March? appeared first on HybridCars.com.

News first broke of the decision to euphemistically “right-size” Coda – as the company referred to the layoffs – last Tuesday on PluginCars.com.

An anonymous source within Coda revealed to PluginCars.com that the company “had sold fewer than 100 units of its all-electric sedan since it went on sale in March 2012 – and that sales had virtually stopped after the car was recalled by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (for faulty safety equipment) in August.”

“They just cut everybody they possible [sic] could,” said the source. “Their sales department went to just a handful of people. It’s a real mess.”

PluginCars.com also reported that the source said Coda was running low on funds and is having difficulty finding customers.

Last month Coda was the recipient of the Patrick Soon-Shiong Innovation Award from the Los Angeles Business Journal. The award from the business trade journal recognizes organizations and executives with proven influential innovation and business development prowess in Los Angeles, an honor that should buoy any company’s image, if even by a small degree.

However, recent news that Coda’s sedan – the one vehicle currently offered by the company – received a two star rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for frontal crash impact on the driver’s side may sap consumer enthusiasm.

A score of two stars isn’t failing, but major brand automakers often see four stars or more in the same tests. The Coda’s passenger side received four stars for frontal impact, and in rollover testing the car rated five out of five stars.

Coda’s four-door vehicle, powered by a 31-kilowatt-hour lithium iron phosphate battery, earned only an 88-mile range rating from the U.S. EPA, but under more sedate driving scenarios has seen its range top 125 miles. The car, currently available only in California, has a top speed of 85 mph, seats five, can recharge in six hours at 240 volts, and retails for $37,250.

PluginCars.com

The post EV Maker Coda Eliminates 15 Percent Of Workforce appeared first on HybridCars.com.

Fans of electric vehicles, and supporters of good old-fashioned American entrepreneurialism, might celebrate Coda’s rugged and independent approach—but that’s being undermined by questions about the manufacturing origins of the Coda sedan. Critics say the car is manufactured in China, so it’s a Chinese car. Full stop. Forget for a moment that nearly every manufactured good we use today comes from China. An analysis of the nationality of the Coda is complex—considering the global nature of the automotive industry.

Connect the dots:

• The car is adapted from a gas-powered car from Chinese state-owned Hafei Motor Co. The chassis of that car was licensed from Japan’s Mitsubishi.
• The Coda visual design comes from Pininfarina, the legendary Italian sports car designer. Coda’s US engineers put in more changes in order to meet US performance and safety specs. Other design aspects came from global automakers, such as Porsche.
• About 40 percent of the components in the car, when measured by monetary value, come from US manufacturers, such as Borg Warner.
• The battery inside Coda’s sedan comes from a joint venture owned by Coda and China’s Tianjin Lishen Battery Co. The electronics for thermal and battery management of the pack were designed and will be produced in the US and shipped to Asia.
• The car will be built on assembly lines in China, with Coda engineers remaining full-time on the manufacturing floor to oversee production.

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“Maybe ten percent of the original [Chinese] design is left. Otherwise, the car has been completely redesigned,” said Kevin Czinger, Coda CEO, in an interview with CBS News. “The auto industry is a global industry. Many components are from China already. It is less a matter of geography and more a matter of what firm has control over process and quality.”

Czinger said that Coda didn’t go to China just for low labor rates, but to use existing production lines rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build manufacturing capacity from scratch. It was a make or break decision for Czinger. In an email to HybridCars.com, he wrote, “The decision Coda had to make was whether to build a safe, affordable , all-electric car or not. The reality is that there is no volume battery manufacturing in the US today.” Czinger believes that Coda’s joint battery venture allows the company “to get to market quickly while building a balanced industry in both the US and China.” Coda’s goal is to accelerate the adoption of electric cars everywhere, not just the United States.

Balancing Act: US Jobs and US Oil Independence

In the end, Coda’s global manufacturing process will become less important than the quality and capabilities of the product resulting from that process.

Coda is promising to deliver a moderately priced, well-designed, safe, highway-capable, all-electric four-door sedan—a feat not yet achieved by any US-based start-up company.

If Coda succeeds, and earns a loyal group of American drivers, the mixed heritage of the Coda sedan may become irrelevant—especially when you consider that Coda’s car runs without using a drop of gasoline. That represents a small but important step toward reversing America’s severe economic and geo-political dependence on oil.

The post Geography, Oil and the Coda Electric Car appeared first on HybridCars.com.

“We’re focused on the battery,” Czinger said in summary of his start-up company’s reason for being. “We have the first and best (automotive scale) mass-produced battery pack” and “we own the intellectual property on our battery system and advanced electronics.”

Coda is producing the batteries in China in association with Lishen Power Battery. The partners have the potential to make 20,000 units a year. Based on that volume, according to Czinger, the company would have enough capacity to one day consider selling their batteries to other car companies. That lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery, which features 728 cells, is durable enough to offer with an 8-year, 100,000-mile warranty.

“To get the first vehicles out, we had to design the battery within the [given] vehicle requirements,” said Czinger. The Coda electric sedan has a four-passenger Mitsubishi chassis with a nondescript Pininfarina-designed body weighing 3,360 pounds. The Coda sedan will be built to order, so new purchasers can expect their vehicles to be delivered four-to-eight weeks after they’ve been ordered. Prior to delivery, Czinger said that Coda has an arrangement with Sears to have one of their technicians visit the new buyer’s home to determine its adaptability for installation of a 220-volt charger. He added that Sears will handle permitting and installation, an issue that has tripped up some companies venturing into the EV field in the past.

The next Coda car will be designed from the ground up as electric vehicles, Czinger promised.

Czinger also addressed the business prospects for the company as it prepares to directly compete against Nissan, Ford, Chevy and other heavy hitters in the plug-in vehicle business. While he personally was one of the early investors, Coda now has access to a “low interest bank facility” to augment its $500 million capital commitment. “This is a very capital-intensive business,” he said, noting that it can easily cost more than $100 million to design and engineer a car for US sales. But Czinger exuded confidence that his small-volume company has the cash, engineering and confidence to succeed.

The post Coda (Electric Sedan) appeared first on HybridCars.com.

“We’re focused on the battery,” Czinger said in summary of his start-up company’s reason for being. “We have the first and best (automotive scale) mass-produced battery pack” and “we own the intellectual property on our battery system and advanced electronics.”

Coda is producing the batteries in China in association with Lishen Power Battery. The partners have the potential to make 20,000 units a year. Based on that volume, according to Czinger, the company would have enough capacity to one day consider selling their batteries to other car companies. That lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery, which features 728 cells, is durable enough to offer with an 8-year, 100,000-mile warranty.

“To get the first vehicles out, we had to design the battery within the [given] vehicle requirements,” said Czinger. The Coda sedan has a four-passenger Mitsubishi chassis with a nondescript Pininfarina-designed body weighing 3,360 pounds. The Coda sedan will be built to order, so new purchasers can expect their vehicles to be delivered four-to-eight weeks after they’ve been ordered. Prior to delivery, Czinger said that Coda has an arrangement with Sears to have one of their technicians visit the new buyer’s home to determine its adaptability for installation of a 220-volt charger. He added that Sears will handle permitting and installation, an issue that has tripped up some companies venturing into the EV field in the past.

The next Coda car will be designed from the ground up as electric vehicles, Czinger promised.

Czinger also addressed the business prospects for the company as it prepares to directly compete against Nissan, Ford, Chevy and other heavy hitters in the plug-in vehicle business. While he personally was one of the early investors, Coda now has access to a “low interest bank facility” to augment its $500 million capital commitment. “This is a very capital-intensive business,” he said, noting that it can easily cost more than $100 million to design and engineer a car for US sales. But Czinger exuded confidence that his small-volume company has the cash, engineering and confidence to succeed.

The post Coda Takes on Major Players for Affordable Pure Electric Car appeared first on HybridCars.com.

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Electric cars get more than their share of press these days—just consider the Tesla Roadster or the Chevrolet Volt. But a quiet startup in California may end up beating its more heralded competitors to the punch, bringing the first fully electric sedan to the US market within 18 months. It would be the first Chinese-made car sold here as well.

Miles Electric Vehicles was founded by multimillionaire Miles Rubin in 2005. He’s been an environmental activist for decades, but earned much of his fortune after selling Polo Ralph Lauren Jeanswear, which he founded in 1990, as well as another apparel group. With deep connections in Chinese manufacturing, Rubin anticipated that the Chinese would make cars one day—and he knew they already made a large portion of the world’s battery cells. The connection seemed obvious.

The base vehicle for the Miles Highway Speed vehicle (top) is a Hafei Saibao 3 (bottom). The Hafei Saibao is a compact sedan built in Harbin, China. Hafei Automotive Group designed the Saibao to meet global safety standards.

The company started out selling neighborhood electric vehicles, a business it still maintains. Early buyers of these low-speed sedans and trucks include cities, universities, electric utilities, NASA, the US Navy, and the National Parks Service. But it’s the prospect of a “real car” that motivates Rubin—a car that families could use for daily travel. Toward that end, Miles announced in February it had raised $15 million, with Rubin reportedly kicking in an additional $30 million himself.

In an exclusive two-hour interview—held in Miles’ offices opposite the Santa Monica Airport—president and CEO Kevin Czinger discussed the company’s strategy, its market positioning, and the development of its Highway Speed model (formerly known as the XS500). He joined Miles this April after stints as a senior executive at Goldman Sachs & Co., the Webvan Group, and Global Signal. He was also active at Benchmark Capital and Fortress Private Equity Funds.

The Core Challenge: Cost

Perhaps the most daunting challenge to launching an affordable electric car into Western markets is simply cost: It takes hundreds of millions of dollars to design and build a car—any car—from scratch. So unless you’re already a global automaker, you have to base the car on an existing vehicle platform, and contract out the manufacturing—just as Tesla did by re-purposing elements of the Lotus Elise in its Roadster and hiring Lotus to build it.

Working with the Chinese Automotive Technology & Research Center (CATARC), Miles surveyed vehicles from dozens of companies now making cars in China. Their goal was to identify one that could be manufactured to Western quality standards, adapted to electric drive, and reliably “homologated”—meaning it would pass the myriad regulations and tests required by multiple agencies before a car can legally be sold in the US and Europe. Crash safety would be a major hurdle. In Europe, thanks to YouTube, Chinese cars are already fighting the reputation of being highly unsafe in crash tests (see videos in “Crash Test Disasters” at bottom of linked story).

The post Exclusive: Miles Electric—The Startup Below The Radar appeared first on HybridCars.com.

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Stumble It!

As concerns over global warming, high gas prices, and dependence on foreign oil snowballed in the last few years, movers and shakers around the country decided to get in on the green car revolution. For six of those megamillionaire entrepreneurs, owning a Prius just wasn’t enough—each has taken major stakes in a green transportation technology. But as these men surely know—or are about to learn—most small green car and alternative fuel companies face an uphill battle. Which of these wealthy tech investors do you think will be the most successful?

1Warren Buffett

          (Net Worth: $62 Billion+)

The Plan: Warren Buffet recently acquired a 10 percent stake in the Chinese electric carmaker, BYD, for $232 million. BYD hopes to use the money to expand into the US and European markets. The company has unveiled a pair of plug-in hybrid sedans, quoting all-electric ranges from 60 to 70 miles. BYD says it hopes to sell cars in Europe and the US by 2010.

The Reality: Crash tests have proved disastrous for BYD thus far, and manufacturing a car that can meet rigorous American safety standards by 2010 is probably nothing more than a pipe dream.

2 T. Boone Pickens

          (Net Worth: $3 Billion)

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The Plan: Before becoming one of America’s most iconic oilmen, T. Boone Pickens spent his youth wildcatting, which is the practice of drilling semi-random holes in the ground in search of oil. His strategy for solving the energy crisis is decidedly more targeted—though it still involves drilling lots more holes in the ground. Pickens spent nearly $60 million promoting the use of compressed natural gas in automobiles, which is the centerpiece of his “Pickens Plan” for energy independence.

In addition to promoting the technology through television commercials and a failed California ballot initiative, Pickens invested $160 million into the development of a mass-market natural gas vehicle. He is also the primary shareholder of Clean Energy Fuels, America’s largest compressed natural gas distribution company.

The Reality: The Pickens Plan can’t succeed without massive government support, and thus far there is little evidence to suggest that his advertising campaign has moved people or politicians beyond moral support to real action—especially considering the current lack of CNG vehicles and refueling infrastructure. Many critics point out that converting American vehicles to CNG simply replaces one form of non-renewable energy with another, setting us up for another energy crisis down the road.

3Andy Grove

          (Net Worth: Around $400 million)

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The Plan: Andy Grove started at Intel in its infancy—he was its third employee—and eventually rose to the rank of chief executive. Since retiring, Grove has become an activist for a post-petroleum America. He fears a future in which the major countries in the world—particularly the United States and China—go to war over the oil that is the lifeblood of their economies.

At a July 2008 energy conference, Grove touted conversions of conventional vehicles into plug-in hybrids as our best hope for energy independence. He called on federal tax credits covering the retrofitting of 10 million trucks, vans, and SUVs by 2012. Grove also asked for more support from venture capitalists and the Small Business Administration to stimulate growth in the sector leading to cheaper, more efficient conversions.

The Reality: It’s one thing to convert a hybrid, like a Toyota Prius, into a plug-in hybrid, but converting a standard gasoline vehicle into a plug-in hybrid is an entirely different matter. It requires impractical and unproven tactics like mounting extra external wheels or motors to existing cars. It’s unlikely that entrepreneurs or a cash strapped federal government will approve the kind of money to support what is widely considered a non-starter.

4Miles Rubin

          (Net Worth: Unknown)

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The Plan: Miles Rubin made his fortune trading textiles and medical devices, eventually running Ralph Lauren’s blue jean line in the ’90s. He’s been involved in the environmental movement since the 1970s when he lobbied Congress to promote alternative energy sources, but Rubin’s big dive into green capitalism didn’t come until 2004, when he founded Miles Electric Vehicles. He’s already invested $35 million into the venture and expects to double that number by the time Miles’ next release hits the market.

The company started out with two low-speed neighborhood electric vehicle releases, the ZX40ST Electric Truck, and the ZX40 (a subcompact car.) The limited market for these vehicles makes it difficult for carmakers to reach the economies of scale that would enable them to be profitable, so Miles’ make or break offering will be the XS500 highway-speed sedan. Slated for release in 2009, the XS500 will be able to hit speeds of up to 80 mph, and is expected to cost between $30,000 and $35,000—after a $7500 government rebate.

The Reality: Miles has yet to complete crash tests on the XS500 sedan, and its prospects are far from certain. Furthermore, as an all-electric car, the XS500 will have a driving range of roughly 120 miles—which is not practical for many car buyers. If the XS500 is forced to compete with similarly priced plug-in hybrids that can run on both gas and electric to achieve a driving range comparable or higher than a gas-powered car, it’s difficult to imagine it succeeding.

5Vinod Khosla

          (Net Worth: $873 million)

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The Plan: Vinod Khosla was co-founder of Sun Microsystems in the early 1980s and went on to form the capital investment firm, Khosla Ventures, entirely with his own money. Khosla has made dozens of investments in green energy firms, and has a special place in his heart—and wallet—for biofuels. Said Khosla in a recent Huffington Post article:

The Reality: Corn-based ethanol is viewed by many as more of a giveaway to farmers than a viable form of renewable energy. Fluctuations in corn prices have lead to troubled times for many ethanol producers, with one of the largest players in the game, VeraSun, filing for bankruptcy protection last week. The so-called second generation of biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol made from feedstocks including wood chips and switchgrass, face similar financial challenges. And that’s if the cellulosic technology pans out—far from certain.

It’s quite possible that Khosla will end up losing a significant amount of money on his ethanol investments if current trends continue. Billionaire Richard Branson has already renounced his earlier support for biofuels on “economic and environmental grounds,” but Khosla remains committed.

6Elon Musk

          (Net Worth: more than $300 million)

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The Plan: In 1999, Elon Musk co-founded the company that would eventually become PayPal, and owned 12 percent of PayPal at the time of its sale to eBay for $1.5 billion. Since then, Musk has split his time between SpaceX, a space exploration company, and Tesla Motors, makers of a $109,000 high-performance all-electric sports cars. He’s already invested more than $55 million of his fortune into Tesla and expects to spend even more before the company launches its slightly more affordable second model.

The Reality: Tesla Motors acknowledged that it is losing money, struggling financially, laying off employees, and closing its Detroit-area office. It’s unknown how long it will take for the company to deliver the $109,000 Roadster to 600 customers with confirmed orders. The Model S, its second model, has been pushed back several times, leading many to take its current 2011 release date with a grain of salt.

From Tesla’s earliest days, critics have questioned its core energy strategy—powering a new ground-up vehicle via 6,831 laptop batteries all wired together.

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