Coda Automotive

Kevin Czinger and Miles Rubin founded Coda in 2009. Early funding raised US$125 million. On January 6, 2011, Coda announced the first close of a US$76 million Series D investment round, bringing the company's total invested capital to more than US$200 million. LIO Energy Systems, CODA's joint venture with Lishen, was funded by a US$100 million equity investment by the partners, and as such, entered into "cooperation agreements" for "up to US$327 million of long-term credit."

Notable investors included equity firms Harbinger Capital Partners, Piper Jaffray, and Riverstone Holdings, and personal investors Henry "Hank" Paulson, John Bryson, Klaus Tschira, Les Wexner, Mack McLarty, Miles Rubin, Steven “Mac” Heller, and Tom Steyer.

Bankruptcy and legal issues

After selling approximately 100 Coda cars in California, Coda filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on May 1, 2013. Coda Holdings stated that it expected to emerge from the bankruptcy process to focus solely on its subsidiary Coda Energy, and would abandon car manufacturing, which is capital intensive.

Shortly after the bankruptcy announcement, former employee Tony Bulchak filed a class-action lawsuit against the automaker, alleging that Coda laid off 125 workers on December 14, 2012, without giving them a 60-day notice. The complaint was resolved in January 2014.

Products

Coda sedan

Coda's first and only car was an all-electric, four-door, five passenger battery electric vehicle (BEV), the Coda sedan. The car is powered by a 31 kWh lithium ion iron phosphate (LiFePO44) battery pack that was larger than that of other vehicles in its class. According to the EPA, the Coda's range of 88 mi (142 km) was the largest among its class. The EPA rated the Coda's combined fuel economy at 73 miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (3.2 L/100 km). The car was backed by a 3-year, 36,000 mile limited warranty and the battery system was backed by a 10-year, 100,000 mile limited warranty.

Coda announced that the net price would be US$37,250 before any electric vehicle federal tax credit and other state and local incentives that were available in the U.S. Initial deliveries of the vehicle were planned for December 2010, but were pushed back to the second half of 2011. Deliveries were rescheduled again for late 2011, and then again to February 2012, with first deliveries actually taking place in March 2012. The car was sold only in California.

Battery production and distribution joint-venture

Coda formed a global joint-venture with Lishen Power Battery, a global battery cell supplier to Samsung, Motorola, and Apple. The joint venture was called LIO Energy Systems, and was created to design, manufacture, and sell battery systems. The name was selected because LIO is the reverse spelling of oil. Together, Coda and Lishen developed a lithium iron phosphate battery cell for transportation and utility applications, which included renewable energy (wind and solar power) storage. LIO Energy Systems currently operates a manufacturing facility in Tianjin and plans to build a U.S. facility in Columbus, Ohio. Initially, the Coda sedan was to be the primary recipient of the battery systems produced by LIO. LIO's production capacity will total 1.4 billion amp hours in Tianjin, China at full scale. With the completion of the Ohio plant, total capacity will reach two billion Ah (6.3 million kWh) of energy storage.

In May 2010, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke visited the LIO Energy Systems facility in Tianjin as part of the Obama administration's first cabinet-level trade mission to China. Commenting on the visit, Locke said, "International green technology partnerships can produce rapid job growth back home and deliver energy solutions abroad, and CODA's venture proves it."

From 2014 to 2015, the Coda website was inaccessible. In 2015, the website was bought up by a used car dealer in Louisville, Kentucky, who had left in most of the original Coda website's contents, not including the homepage and a few other, minor pages.

On April 19th 2025, the website was sold again and bought by a Steroid company called Grizzly Steroids as a redirect site to their main website.