1,000 pound battery? 80 mile range? Red Chinese parts and platform?

ATTRIBUTION: BLOOMBERG

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Bankruptcy to Seek Sale

By Michael Bathon & Kit Chellel - May 1, 2013 5:07 PM CT

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Coda Holdings Inc., parent of the electric-car maker backed by billionaire Philip Falcone, filed for bankruptcy and will seek to sell its assets to a group led by a Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG) unit for $25 million.

The Los Angeles-based company, whose Coda Automotive unit also sought court protection, listed assets of as much as $50 million and debt of as much as $100 million today in the Chapter 11 filing in Wilmington, Delaware. The company said it intends to sell its assets within 45 days.

Enlarge image

Electric-Car Maker Coda Files for Bankruptcy to Seek Sale

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The closely held company’s Coda Automotive unit listed assets of as much as $50 million and liabilities of as much as $100 million in the Chapter 11 filing in Wilmington, Delaware, today.

The closely held company’s Coda Automotive unit listed assets of as much as $50 million and liabilities of as much as $100 million in the Chapter 11 filing in Wilmington, Delaware, today. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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ATTRIBUTION:  BLOOMBERG

Coda’s bankruptcy is at least the third by an electric vehicle-related company in just over a year. A123 Systems Inc. (AONEQ), a battery supplier to Fisker Automotive Inc., another California-based maker of electric cars, filed for bankruptcy in October. Ener1 Inc., also a maker of batteries for electric cars, entered bankruptcy in January 2012.

While A123 and an Ener1 unit received U.S. government funds, Coda didn’t. The company applied for a $334 million loan in May 2010 and withdrew the request in April 2012.

“After two years of uncertainty, we needed to move forward with our business plan independent of the loan,” Matt Sloustcher, a Coda spokesman, said in an e-mail today.

Production Delays

Coda was forced to seek bankruptcy protection because of production delays, insufficient capital to market and sell its sedan, and slow growth for the electric-vehicle market, which it blames on the scarcity of charging stations, according to a declaration by Chief Restructuring Officer John P. Madden. Coda will focus on its energy-storage business, Chief Executive Officer Phil Murtaugh said in a statement today.

Sales of the Coda sedan, built off China-based Hafei Motor Co.’s Saibao platform, fell short of expectations, with fewer than 100 units sold since entering the market in March 2012, according to court papers. Complications adapting the sedan to an electric platform and meeting U.S. regulatory standards delayed production until a year after originally anticipated in November 2011.

Closely held Coda, which counted former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as an investor, pitched its vehicle as a “real world” car with better range, battery-pack life and acceleration than competitors such as Nissan Motor (7201) Co.’s Leaf, Ford Motor Co. (F)’s Focus EV and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (7211)’s i-MiEV hatchbacks. The compact, which cost $37,250 before a $7,500 U.S. tax credit, averages 88 miles (142 kilometers) per charge and can travel as far as 125 miles, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates.

Shrinking Market

About 87,000 electric and plug-in hybrid cars have been sold in the U.S., with two years left to achieve President Barack Obama’s target of 1 million sales for the industry.

While sales of battery-only and plug-in hybrids are rising, the pace trails optimistic goals set by advocates, including Nissan and Renault SA (RNO) Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn, who predicted electric vehicles would be 10 percent of global sales by 2020.

U.S. sales of rechargeable autos totaled 50,288 last year, led by General Motors Co. (GM)’s Volt plug-in, up from 17,805 in 2011, based on data compiled by Bloomberg. Sales for the segment totaled 17,842 in this year’s first quarter. Electric-only vehicle sales totaled 13,542 in 2012, a 34 percent increase over the 10,104 sold in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

A U.S. congressional committee is investigating the Energy Department’s loans for alternative-fuel vehicles after the manufacturers have been plagued by financial problems.

A123, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, used $132 million in federal grant money to build two plants in Michigan. Fisker fired three quarters of its work force last month and missed its first payment on a U.S. government loan.

Equity Investors

Coda raised about $344 million in equity investments since its founding, according to court documents. Investors included New World Strategic Investment Ltd., Indus Capital and Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC (OZM), Aeris Capital, Angeleno Group LLC, Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners LLC and Riverstone Holdings LLC, Coda said in 2011.

The company owes about $77.5 million in notes and loans, according to court papers. Coda owes Hafei, its biggest unsecured creditor, $2.7 million. Coda and its affiliates collectively owe about $17 million to their 30 largest unsecured creditors.

A group led by a Fortress affiliate agreed to provide a $5 million delayed-draw loan to help fund operation through the sale process, according to court papers. The Fortress unit will act as the lead bidder at a court-supervised auction and will buy the company for $25 million if no other competing offers surface.

The group may bid debt rather than cash. Coda requested a May 16 hearing to set guidelines to govern the sale process. The company wants a deadline of May 31 for competing offers, a June 3 auction if other bids are received, and a June 6 hearing to seek approval of the sale.

California Assembly

The Coda sedan’s chassis is built in China through a partnership with Hafei, with final assembly in Benicia, California. Lithium-iron-phosphate cells for its 1,000-pound (454-kilogram) battery pack are from LIO Energy Systems, a joint venture of Coda and China’s Tianjin Lishen Battery.

Coda said last year that it would produce battery-powered autos with China’s Great Wall Motor Co. (2333) that would be sold under the U.S. company’s name starting in 2014.

The case is In re Coda Automotive, 13-bk-11154, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).

To contact the reporters on this story: Michael Bathon in Wilmington at mbathon@bloomberg.net; Kit Chellel in London at cchellel@bloomberg.net

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THIS ACTUALLY NEEDS NO FURTHER EXPLANATION.  OROGS CAN READ.

Thanks for your kind attention.

El Gringo Viejo

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An oddity...co-incidence...a question



One of the more than 40 injured
in the Prague blast.
(Picture David W. Cerney, Reuters)

     It truly seems odd.   In the Prague, Czecha Republic a huge downtown explosion, supposedly of an ignition of a natural gas leakage.   That explosion occurs on 29 April 2013 in the gentrified, very elegant part of the city.   It is the part that fills the tourists' cameras, the Czech visitors and foreign as well.

     While it is the official, and probably the truthful, line, it seems really, really eerie that such an event would occur in a place where correct handling of such plumbing has long been second nature to the populace. Of course, we even have such problems here in Texas where we use natural gas to brush our teeth and to make sticky note.

     The double-down on the eerie part is that in another Czech capital....in Texas...there was an explosion in this same April, on the 17th to be precise.   Almost 20 people were killed and almost 200 were injured to lesser or greater degree.   And yes, Virginia, it occurred in another Czech Capital....the Czech Capital of Texas.    A little place named West, Texas.

     The AMTRAK Texas Eagle goes almost through the due middle of the little town, which is situated more or less midway twixt Austin and Dallas.   It is little north of Waco....in pleasant country, rolling hills, farms, thickets, and small villages.  The northbound Eagle, heading for Fort Worth and Dallas, Texarkana, St. Louis, and Chicago went through a little the fire had started at a fertiliser plant.  The southbound Texas Eagle would have gone through a couple of hours before the fertiliser plant finally exploded...and shook seismographs throughout the entire Republic of Texas.   The folks sitting on the right side of the train would have clearly seen the fire, and certainly commented upon the event.

     And why is West, Texas the Czech Capital of Texas?   Well, Texas is everything the lore has it to be, and it is also a composition of things that might astound a lot of folks.  For instance, the entire area of Central Texas has a rural population (the last generations are substantially urbanised) that is drawn from Germans of different sorts, Polish, Czech, Bohemian, Alsatian, Wends, and Ukrainian/Russian in that descending order.   The area to the east of Interstate 35, that connects Laredo, San Antonio, Austin, Waco, Temple, Ft.Worth/Dallas, is involved with immigrations of Polish and Czech and Bohemian folks  shortly before the War Between the States and continuing on through the earliest 1900s.   There were probably 300,000 of such folks who arrived in the descending order above.  They stayed west of Houston and East of Austin in the land purchases and settlement.   The different types of Germans settled to the West of that line that is now marked by Interstate 35.

     These ethnic groups are still identifiable by their surnames, their numerous Roman Catholic or Lutheran churches  (some quite elegant....look up on Google - Painted Churches of Central Texas).   These groups are very traditional, very typically Texian, agrarian in personal outlook, usually well educated and/or trained, very patriotic to Texas and also loyal to their ethnic past...conservative, primarily Republican voting;    Also clean, productive, communitarian, and anti-socialist.

     This town, West, Texas holds a huge Czech Cultural Celebration every year at Memorial Day with polkas, beer, kolaches, sausages and other barbeque, fancy native costumery, lots of accordions...and really good times.   And above it all are banners, placards, and other types of notice reminding one and all that West is the Czech Capital of Texas.   Simply Google that term and see....West, Texas, the Czech Capital of Texas.

Very Strange.   Two Czech capitals with severe explosions a few days apart.
El Gringo Viejo

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An old message for the New Christie Minstrels...

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A CALL FOR THE ABOLITION OF FEMA and ALL FORMS OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE, and the RE-ESTABLISHMENT of STRICTLY PRIVATE RELIEF AGENCIES.

El Gringo Viejo's father was in the 1st Cavalry Division, 12th Regiment, Headquarters Squadron....1930 through 1933...stationed at Fort Brown, in Brownsville, Texas. That year there were four tropical involvements that struck right on or close by either side of Brownsville, Texas, including one horrific storm. In the aftermath, the Rio Grande ran 100 miles wide at the mouth, and the disturbance and disorder was total. The Mexican Cavalry and the American Cavalry horses and mules...the ones who had survived...had mixed up on various "islands". Both armies went about recollecting the horses and mules. Many bore the same markings because of shared purveyours. They separated them by using the different bugle calls. By that manner each Army recovered about 98% of their mounts.

Also...like Galvez Town in 1900....where there was no FEMA...no posturing politicians...just 7,000 - 12,000 dead people and total destruction. It is hard for people to realise that Galveston had the first or second largest Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Methodist Churches in Texas at the time. Over 90 percent of the city was totally gone. There were 20 X 30 inch members, 30 to 60 feet long found 20 miles from Galveston. Locomotives were carried off and found a year later. But, by the third day Negroes, Mexicans, Anglos, foreign sailors, prostitutes, doctors, teachers, labourers, etc. were out burying the dead, caring for the injured, cleaning up and separating chaff from leavings that could be used in the reconstruction. Bartenders and preachers, garbagemen and city councilmen, all working side by side. Galveston was a rough town...still has a rough edge to it....but, by God, the Samaritan Rule was followed and we didn't ask then or in Brownsville, for some abominable Messianic Maniac to come and pronounce that things could start back to normal and that he would make sure every body got everything they needed. We have become a wanton race of people....waiting for Father O'bamaham to "give" us back our normalcy. I spit on the shoes of Christie and Cuomo. I lament the people lining up to become contestants in the "New Queen for a Day" program. I expected it from New Orleans...but the sociological cancer spreads even to those who used to know how to buckle down and do, instead of whine.

 

Respectfully,

El Gringo Viejo

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THE TEXAS NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

                                                           

Our Own Fort Knox

A key component of the economic mission of the Texas Nationalist Movement is the promotion of monetary policies that support the independence of Texas.

As Russell Longcore notes, one of the cornerstones of maintaining the sovereignty of an independent state is the "power of the purse".

Enter in House Bill 3505 (full text here).

This bill, currently making the rounds through the Texas Legislature is major step to asserting the economic independence of Texas.

Sponsored by Rep. Giovanni Capriglione and backed by Gov. Rick Perry, HB3505 would create the Texas Bullion Depository, a state-based bank to house $1 billion worth of gold bars owned by the University of Texas Investment Management Co. and presently stored by the Federal Reserve.

HB3505 creates the Texas Bullion Depository to:

"serve as the custodian, guardian, and administrator of all bullion and specie transferred to or otherwise acquired by this state; provide the basis for a system for precious metals-denominated intergovernmental payments and settlements; establish a process and mechanism by which the system is able to function in the event of a systemic dislocation in a national and international financial system, including systemic problems in liquidity, credit markets, or currency markets; and provide a regulatory and administrative framework for the system to be made available to private persons."

In plain language, the bill essentially creates a means for intergovernmental transactions to occur in precious metals. Taxes could be paid in precious metals and it would allow people who receive payments from the government to elect precious metals for payment. It would also allow normal citizens to open an account and deposit their precious metals in the state depository. They could then use the electronic system to make payments to any other business or person who also hold an account.

All metals would be redeemable on demand. Fractional Reserve banking would be prohibited as well as all other types of banking or investment with the deposits.

Why this and why now?

It's simple. The fiscal chickens are coming home to roost. It is absolutely no secret that the Federal government and the economic system that they have imposed is on the verge of collapse. 

This bill represents an opening salvo in Texas' fight to control its own economic destiny. 

What's the hold up?

Politics and misplaced priorities. This bill was almost introduced during the last session. Even with Governor Perry's very public support of this bill, the process has ground to a halt in the Texas House. The House leadership are committed to a "Casper Milquetoast" session so that any potential opposition in the next election cycle will have no controversy with which to challenge them.

As the Federal Government continues to actively attack the sovereignty of Texas and our rights are discarded like yesterday's garbage, the Legislature is looking to avoid pain now and in the next election.

What can you do?

The bill currently sits in the Appropriations Committee and needs a vote to get to the floor. It also needs Governor Perry to put his political capital where his mouth is. And it needs the Lt. Governor to hasten it's progress through the Texas Senate when it gets there.

In short, they need to hear from the people that this is a priority.

Two things:

1) Call these three today and let them know that you want to see support and action on this bill.

• Representative Jim Pitts (Chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee) - (512) 463-0516
• Governor Rick Perry - (512) 463-1782
• Lt. Governor David Dewhurst -  (512) 463-0001

Tell them that you support HB 3505 and want to see it become law in this session.

2) Spread this article far and wide. There must be a groundswell of support voiced to these three to make this happen.

HB 3505 is important to the independence of Texas and you can help make it happen.

El Gringo Viejo

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Diederik Staple

  Diederik Stapel (above), a Dutch social psychologist,

 perpetrated an audacious academic fraud by making up

 studies that told the world what it wanted

 to hear about human nature.

picture and article from Koos Breukel, New York Times 

 

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    The Ghost of East Anglia Universities Past has surfaced again.   One of Marxist academia's favourite  analysts, after completing over fifty very thorough studies about how disgusting white people, normal people, and people who take care of themselves really are....finally comes clean.  His entire life was finally turned into a Petri dish in a Great Research Project, called "I am better than you are because I am willing to lie to prove that I am better than you are.   You are a carnivore, a skilled blue collar or professional white collar worker who actually thinks he is in charge of his own life and responsible for himself.  I hate you.   I am a socialist who wants to be part of the grey herd because I am ethically and evolutionarily better than you.   Therefore I lie."

 

BUT WAIT!    THERE'S MORE!   PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THIS HAS GONE ON FOREVER!!!

READ THESE COMFORTABLE WORDS FROM ANOTHER (REAL) SOCIAL SCIENTIST ABOUT THE FRAUDULENT, PETER PANish INVENTIONS OF MARGARET MEAD:

(derived from Wikipedia)

In 1999 Freeman published another book, The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research, including previously unavailable material.

The analyst (Freeman) attempts to explain, forgive, ascertain, and otherwise run interference for a poor innocent ball carrier on the football field of academia.   Please be  certain that you work through the last paragraph of the following material written in blue.   Martin Orans's last sentence of that paragraph is the key statement, so please wade through to that point.
  
    "Most anthropologists have since been highly critical of Freeman's arguments. A frequent criticism of Freeman is that he regularly misrepresented Mead's research and views.^[23][24] In a 2009 evaluation of the debate, anthropologist Paul Shankman concluded that:

Margaret Mead
1948

"There is now a large body of criticism of Freeman's work from a number of perspectives in which Mead, Samoa, and anthropology appear in a very different light than they do in Freeman's work. Indeed, the immense significance that Freeman gave his critique looks like "much ado about nothing" to many of his critics.^[23]

 "In 1996 Martin Orans examined Mead's notes preserved at the Library of Congress, and credits her for leaving all of her recorded data available to the general public. Orans concludes that Freeman's basic criticisms, that Mead was duped by ceremonial virgin Fa'apua'a Fa'amu (who later swore to Freeman that she had played a joke on Mead) were false for several reasons: first, Mead was well aware of the forms and frequency of Samoan joking; second, she provided a careful account of the sexual restrictions on ceremonial virgins that correspond's to Fa'apua'a Fa'auma'a's account to Freeman, and third, that Mead's notes make clear that she had reached her conclusions about Samoan sexuality before meeting Fa'apua'a Fa'amu. He therefore concludes, contrary to Freeman, that Mead was never the victim of a hoax. As Orans points out Mead's data support several different conclusions, and that Mead's conclusions hinge on an interpretive, rather than positivist, approach to culture. Evaluating Mead's work in Samoa from a positivist stance, Martin Orans' assessment of the controversy was that Mead did not formulate her research agenda in scientific terms, and that "her work may properly be damned with the harshest scientific criticism of all, that it is 'not even wrong'".<sup>[25]

MEAD'S WORK MAY BE PROPERLY DAMNED WITH THE HARSHEST CRITICISM OF ALL, THAT IT IS  NOT EVEN WRONG.'"     Her work was accepted as absolute anthropological and sociological .925 sterling and beyond reproach.  The "just the facts, please" Miss Hathaway to Banker Drysdale on the Beverly Hillbillies personality-type lectured throughout the United States about how the primitive Samoans were better, more moral, and just all around superior to the tightly wound American white race.   She and Doctor  Benjamin Spock were friends, and interfaced and interacted a great deal on various matters.  Both those academic frauds were admired and followed by my poor mother, who always wanted to follow the lead of intellectuals.  It was a real crusher when it was released in the news back in the early 1990s that COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA was a big bucket of bologna and bilge bricks.   Doctor Spock and Doctor Seuss were both nutters, and, in our humble opinion.....dangerous to children and other living things.</sup>


 Dr. Theodor Seuss Geisel

 

^{AND YOUR POINT IS,  EL GRINGO VIEJO?}

      ^{We have been, and continue to be, carpet bombed on a daily basis by "intellectual" frauds who have hootsy-tootsy Ivy League advanced degrees in Underwater Basketweaving who then set out to do "studies" that are  flawed and/or purposefully faked in order to forward a pro-socialist agenda.  East Anglia University Global warming, anybody?    And literally hundreds of other surveys can be citied.    El Gringo Viejo's admonitions emanate even into the conclusions about "the Hispanic vote"....which are based on very, very, very flawed data collection procedures.  What seems to be reasonable in that issue , because it is now part of the "common knowledge" is neither reasonable nor correct, due to the nature of the collection of data as well as the difficulty in even identifying what a Latin voter might be.   Almost all research conclusion in the social sciences being performed by major universities at this time should be held suspect as wholly fabricated or "guided" in their conclusions.  We must remember the need for embryonic stem-cell research needing the "unused" preserved and frozen human embryos....when in fact other research had already established that a patient' s own stem cells would soon be convertible for implant purposes.}

    ^{This is not to mention that according to Al Gore, the place where he bought his lovey-dovey nest on the California coast....in 2006.....had been under sea level since 1995 according to Al Gore's predictions made in 1990.   Poor Al, all that ploughing with a team of mules on the rocky hillsides of Tennessee, planting that tobacco, must have addled his po'h brain in the Sun.}

 

^{El Gringo Viejo}

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