I picked this one up off of Craigslist recently for $2750 from the original owner, who was selling because its range had degraded to about 8 miles. He gave me this ad from the newspaper that apparently tempted him to buy it. The Coda indeed was technologically quite solid; it had a larger battery than the Leafs of its time, which was actively heated and cooled, 100kW UQM drivetrain, and it had 6kW charging from the start.
Why the heck did I buy one of these? Well, my my 914 isn't really drivable in the winter even here in California - it doesn't handle rain well, it doesn't have a heater, and it's particularly lacking in safety features. I had been thinking about how my next project would be something a bit more modern, but the idea of doing that from scratch seemed daunting. But then this came up on Craigslist earlier this winter, and I realized I could shortcut all the way to having that project for probably much less money and effort than it would take to put it all together myself, and then I could modify it from there if there's anything I wanted to add.
The range issue seems to not be a dead cell, but a bad BMS, specifically the balance channels. There are 2 cells (in the white quadrant) that are way higher than the rest of the pack, both when it's fully charged and fully discharged (fully discharged is indicated around 85% on the dash). So I think those balance channels have failed and let those 2 cells drift above the rest of the pack over time. If that's the case I can drop the pack, swap the BMS module, and then manually balance those 2 cells down, and I should be able to get the rest of the pack's capacity back.
Fully charged cell voltage view (Coda uses iron phosphate batteries):
- Traction control light is on. I'm thinking this is a wheelspeed sensor since the light only lights up when the car starts moving. ABS on the fronts seems to be working fine, haven't dug much further into this.
My car does has some significant delay in the throttle response, in the Coda documentation I've gotten ahold of it seems that traction control problems may push the car into some sort of limp mode which could explain the throttle response. I also talked to another Coda owner who said his Coda doesn't have that delay, so I know it's not a normal Coda thing. - TPMS light is on - likely because the sensors are the original sensors, and their batteries have died. You need the Coda dealer dongle tool to flash new sensors in there, which I can rent from Thunderstruck EV.
- Driver side mirror is held on with a zip tie.
- Key fobs don't work
- Right side secondary brake light is out (seems to have ingested water)
- Left passenger door will unlock but not lock (seems mechanical, as I can see it nudge when I lock the doors)
- Sunglasses holder latch failed
- Air conditioning not working, completely empty of refrigerant
As for modifications once I fix the above issues, I want to start digging into the CANbusses on the car and see if I can make a new VCU for it, probably based off ZombieVerter but with the same connectors as in the Coda so it's a drop in replacement. This may become less of an issue once I can fix traction control, but I don't like the throttle dynamics, the Coda still has creep mode like an automatic transmission car, I'd rather have more of a one pedal driving feel here.
Maybe if I end up really liking it and I can get enough spare parts to keep it running I'll build a new battery with more modern high capacity cells and DC fast charging.
Speaking of spare parts, another one of these just popped up on Craigslist.
