(June 3, 2009) Miles EV which has been selling low speed electric vehicles in the US for several years announced today that it will launch its first full speed electric car in the fall of 2010. The new car will be sold under a new brand, Coda Automotive.

The Coda sedan is a four door, five passenger fully electric sedan. Coda expects that it may be the first mainstream fully electric car to go on sale in the US if it meets its launch timing.

As reported earlier, the Coda sedan is based on a chassis from Chinese manufacturer Hafei Automotive and will be assembled by that company. Coda has worked with Porsche Engineering to re-engineer the chassis to accept an electric drivetrain and meet all US market safety requirements.

Coda has 20 prototypes undergoing testing in the US and Europe and several crash tests have already been completed. The new sedan is expected to get at least a 5-star rating on the new car assessment program and could possibly get 5 stars.

The lithium iron phosphate cells for the 34 kWh battery pack will be supplied by Lishen. The pack will take 6 hours to recharge at 240V and is expected to provide a 90-120 mile real world range. Coda will provide an 8 year/100,000 mile warranty on the battery pack, double the standard warranty offered by Tesla Motors.

Following a summer 2010 fleet test program with 200 cars, Coda will launch full scale sales in the Autumn in California with the hopes of selling 2,800 cars by the end of the year. Subsequently the company hopes to get to 20,000 sales in 2011.

The base price of the car will be $45,000 but that will be significantly reduced by tax incentives for plug in vehicles such as the federal $7,500 tax credit.  If Coda meets its timing and sales goals it will beat virtually all of the automakers launching electric and range-extended electric vehicles to market.