coda i kinda want an electric car. so i test drove a coda. i kinda like it. it's a car that really tries to be a car. as opposed to being a golf cart that's trying to be a car. or a video game with wheels. or a gas/electric chimera which does neither well. okay so my impressions. i've already touched on the fact that it's more/less a standard car. they didn't try to reinvent the user interface. ie the key is normal sized. the ignition switch is in the normal place and functions the normal way. the speedometer is in the normal place. as are the turn signals. and pretty much everything. the exception is the gear shift. it's a dial like you'd find on an oversized tempest arcade game. the first thing i did on the test drive was spin it like crazy. it makes that same cool bzzzz noise of the classic arcade. the sales dude nearly freaked. heh. it works. but yeah. a normal stick would have been better. this was the first electric car i've ever driven. it didn't accelerate from zero as fast as i thought an electric car should. but it kept on accelerating through 20 and 30 and 40 miles per hour. the acceleration in a gas car kinda falls off at those speeds. the charger plug was where the gas fill usually is. good. it whined a high pitched keening noise a bit. i'm somewhat deaf. so it didn't bother me. but it might be really irritating to someone with sensitive ears. the body is a 1990s era mitsubishi lancer. which is fine. the doors aren't the super thick monsters that are currently popular. and the windows are large. which i like. the trunk was normal sized. from the reviews i was expecting it to be bigger. the engine compartment was full of stuff. which surprised me. at least half of the gear was dedicated to climate control for the batteries. which was unexpected. apparently batteries degrade rapidly if they're too warm or too cold. if you take your foot off the gas the car cruises for 2 seconds. then regenerative braking kicks in. which i think is weird. and will take some getting used to. braking in general is a bit non-linear. if you just press on the brakes, you'll slow down slowly faster slowly faster. it's kinda weird. if you want to decelerate consistently, you'll have to make constant adjustments. won't bother me. but some members of my family get carsick easily. so that might be a show stopper. need to get the whole family in the thing. to see what they think. given how much i drive, the car will cost about $400 or so more than a gas powered equivalent. most of that is because it'll cost about $10k more up front. even after the federal and state rebate/credit things. it'd be cheaper than a gas car if you ignore opportunity cost. or if electricity was free. which it might be (eventually) if we get solar panels. overall, i like it. and want one.  ¶ 8:00 AM