#miles

Yesterday, battery acolytes who hate to see stories of EV makers going bankrupt complained about a TTAC story of another EV maker going bankrupt. They said the story was unfair, because Miles Electric made electric essential services vehicles, used for parking enforcement and the like, whereas bankrupt EV makers such as Coda tried to sell real cars,so where’s the connection?

Our story actually went to great pains trying to explain this promising niche, in an attempt to say “well, if it doesn’t work here, where will it?”

Wire services such as Reuters are less subtle.

The electric vehicle revolution has eaten another one of its children. “U.S. electric car manufacturer Miles Electric Vehicles filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early on Tuesday, court documents showed, highlighting the difficulties faced by battery-powered vehicles in gaining wide market acceptance,” says Reuters.

On the strength of Coda Automotive’s plan to launch a $45,000 EV conversion of a Chinese Hafei sedan, our coverage of the EV startup (formed from the ashes of Miles Electric Vehicles) has pretty much been limited to the conclusion that it “make the Volt look good.” And as the competition has moved forward, the venture isn’t looking any better by comparison. With news that Nissan will be able to manufacture its Leaf batteries for the low, low price of under $400 per kWh ( if all goes to plan, anyway) rocking the EV community, Coda’s proposition of asking $45,000 for a 33.8 kWh lithium-ion battery with a Chinese compact sedan attached to it has not aged well (conservatively assuming the Hafei costs $15k, that still breaks out to nearly $900 per battery kWh, as crude as the comparison may be). But don’t let a little common sense worry you about Coda’s future: according to a company press release [via PRNewswire] the firm just scored a cool $58m in an oversubscribed fundraising round that leaves it with over $125 in total investments.