New Electric Car Company Lands in LA

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The Los Angeles area is famous for its congested freeways and long commutes. Angelenos spend more time trapped in traffic than any other drivers around the nation. Slipping air quality and wasted work hours are among the costs of the city's car culture.

Polls show that more than two-thirds of Southern California voters want expansion of public transportation options.

But rather than working to eliminate L.A's car culture, city officials are seeking to revamp it--by encouraging companies that manufacture all-electric vehicles to set up shop in the city.

Today, electric carmaker CODA opened its global headquarters in Los Angeles, just weeks after Chinese company BYD Co. based its North American operations here.

The city is providing tax incentives to companies like CODA and BYD, hoping to make Los Angeles the home of the electric car.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says companies like CODA are a step towards a greener, cleaner city.

"When I had the audacity to say that L.A., the city with the dirtiest air, the city with more congestion than any city the country, a city addicted, frankly, to the single-passenger automobile, a city with the dirtiest public utility in the United States of America--when I had the audacity to say we're going to be the cleanest, greenest big city in the country, everybody smirked," the mayor said.

Some people may still be smirking, given California's budget concerns.

Governor Jerry Brown admitted that the state budget due in January will prove challenging.

"In the midst of austerity, we also need dynamic innovation," Brown said. "And that's what CODA is. That's why we're here. We're saying yes to solar, yes to CODA, yes to Los Angeles. It's on the move, on the rails. We'll have a high-speed rail in no time. Just give me 70 or 80 billion and we'll have that too."

That too may be wishful thinking, since the California High Speed Rail Authority recently said it would cost 98 billion to build a high speed rail in the state.

But here in LA, the mayor's pushing to double the size of the city's rail system and retouch roads.

Electric cars won't fix the roads, but CODA's chairman Steven Heller says they could save the state 74 billion. If California drivers switched to all electric vehicles, he says they would pay 8 billion more dollars per year in electricity, but save 82 billion in gasoline costs.