Watch MotorWeek Rave About The Coda EV: It Grabbed Our Attention And Kept It [Video]

• The Coda EV went on sale in 2012, the same year as Tesla’s Model S.
• While the Model S is still sold today, the Coda EV is long gone.
• The company behind it went bankrupt in 2013 and its assets were sold.

It’s 2012 and the Tesla Model S is about to go into production at the young automaker’s new factory in Fremont, California. It was a brand-new, purpose-built EV from a company that made a name for itself with the original Roadster–a sporty and rather expensive first try that became a collectible in recent years.

The 2012 Model S was priced from $57,400 for the base version with the software-limited 40-kilowatt-hour battery and went all the way up to $105,400 for the top Signature Performance trim. In today’s money, that would be about $78,000 and $143,000, respectively.

In other words, it was expensive. So what could an environmentally-conscious consumer buy that could provide sufficient range and …