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Sunday, January 23, 2011
Electric Vehicle Makers, CODA Holdings, Appoint Phil Murtaugh CEO
Today, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based maker of electric vehicles and batteries, CODA Holdings, appointed auto industry veteran Phil Murtaugh as chief executive officer.
On a conference call, CODA’s interim CEO Steven “Mac” Heller described Murtaugh as someone who believes “the automotive industry can innovate rapidly and be more responsible as a global citizen,” and is deeply experienced in building American auto businesses in Asia. Earlier this month, the company raised a $76 million bringing its equity funding to about $200 million, sparking IPO rumors.
Murtaugh previously worked as chairman and chief executive officer of GM China. Over a decade, he grew GM’s presence there from fifteen employees in its Shanghai operations to 15,000 employees throughout the country, increasing the unit’s revenue from $300 million to more than $7 billion. In brief, Murtaugh discussed CODA’s plans in Asia, and how he will leverage his experience on behalf of the younger car company:
“We have a joint venture with one of the three largest battery manufacturers in China [Lishen Power Battery of Tianjin, China, whose principal shareholder is CNOOC, or China National Offshore Oil Company]. The joint venture is called LIO [Energy Systems]. They will manufacture the battery systems for [our] vehicles. We also have contract assembly agreements to assemble the [battery packs]…
A vast majority of CODA manufacturing will be in China. That fits nicely with experiences I’ve had [there] for the last 15 years. I understand China’s manufacturers and culture. My experience will help us deal with those situations. We’re going to introduce our vehicle into China’s domestic market as well as in the U.S.”
Through its battery system joint venture, currently CODA is a large-scale producer of power battery systems for the transportation and utility industries. Murtaugh touched upon CODA’s retail sales outlook for its vehicles in the U.S., as well.
“We haven’t announced our plans. But what I can tell you is this…We won’t start our retail sales through a traditional dealer network. It will involve setting up company-owned sales outlets. They will be in high visibility areas with lots of [foot] traffic where people will be able to walk in or make an appointment [online] to test drive vehicles. [Customers will be able to] configure their vehicles, and place orders online. This will be a no-haggle buying experience. That’s shown to be very, very successful with other [car] brands.”
With Murtaugh’s appointment, Miles L. Rubin, CODA’s founder and co-chairman becomes a chairman emeritus, remains a company director and the company’s largest shareholder. Heller, CODA Holdings interim CEO and a co-chairman, will move into the role of executive chairman.
Creator Of Million Dollar Homepage Makes Do Nothing For 2 Minutes
PopJam CEO Alex Tew, the guy behind the internet phenomenon Million Dollar Homepage, has now gone the opposite extreme. Along with developer Ben Dowling, he has created Do Nothing For 2 Minutes, a site whose purpose is pretty self-explanatory.
While MDH was a celebration in online excess, DNF2M is a zen treatise on computing and a challenge. Can you sit in front of your computer and not touch your mouse or keyboard for a measly two minutes? It’s actually not as easy as it sounds, especially if you work in a web-intensive field.
Says Tew on the inspiration behind the site, which brought in 20,000 uniques 8 hours after launch.
“I had been thinking how we spend every waking minute of the day with access to an unlimited supply of information, to the point of information overload. i also read somewhere that there is evidence that our brains are being re-wired by the internet, because we get a little dopamine kick every time we check our e-mail or Twitter or Facebook and there’s a new update. So we’re all developing a bit of ADD. which is probably not great in terms of being productive.”
Tew also holds that the key difference in the way we interact online between when he built MDH in 2005 is that the “viral has gone viral” (infinite loop!), “Ideas spread even faster because of social media. Whereas before, the distribution power lay more with the news media and blogs back in 2005. If I had done MDH today, I might have made $1m in 4 weeks rather than 4 months.”
As Rummble’s CEO Is Ousted, The Story Of A European Startup Unravels
Rummble, one the UK’s oldest location-based reviews and social network which actually pre-dated Foursquare, has had its CEO removed by the board and now faces a radical shift away from it’s consumer-facing service of four years towards a Business-to-Business future.
What we know on the ground right now is that CEO Andrew Scott has departed the company; the existing staff remain in place and Rummble, while maintaining its web site and smartphone apps, is set to move forward towards a B2B strategy which is not white-label, but based on leveraging its core technology.
Over the past week TechCrunch Europe has been delving into the story of why Rummble ended up in this situation, and where it goes from here. I have been covering Rummble for over 5 years. I had them pitch at startups events even before I joined TechCrunch and I’ve written about 45 posts mentioning them in the last three years. So I guess I feel I know the company quite well.
So – to be blunt – what the hell happened?
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