Coda
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Coda Automotive was a Los Angeles-based electric vehicle startup founded in 2007 (by Kevin Czinger and Miles Rubin) that re-engineered a Chinese gasoline sedan (the Hafei Saibao, based on a 1990s Mitsubishi Lancer) into an all-electric car. The $37,250 Coda sedan, assembled in Benicia, California with Chinese-made batteries, claimed up to 125 miles of range per charge.
02 / Coda FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
After a year on sale in California, Coda had sold only about 100 cars. Consumers balked at high prices and range anxiety, and the capital-intensive auto business drained its funds: the company sought $150 million in private funding but secured only $22 million, and withdrew a $334 million federal loan request. On May 1, 2013, CODA Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware, exiting the auto business to focus on its CODA Energy storage subsidiary.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Product or service closed
Coda closed the recorded product or service.
- Company founded
Coda was founded.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Raised $240 million in total (reports cite roughly $300 million in equity funding).
- 02
On May 1, 2013 the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and exited the car business; a creditor group led by Fortress planned a $25 million acquisition and a pivot to the energy-storage business CODA Energy.
- 03
The unsold remaining vehicles were bought by Mullen Technologies and sold as the Mullen 700e through 2019.
- 04
No audited loss figure was publicly disclosed; the $25 million was an acquisition price, not a loss.