Electric cars are all about the battery. That’s been the consistent message from Coda, the Southern Calif.-based electric car start-up.

The company made its major league auto show debut at the recent 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show. After speaking with interim CEO Mac Heller in L.A. about the company’s business prospects, we asked the company’s battery chief, Phil Gow, to give us a tour of the Coda battery pack and management system. See video below.

Gow previously worked on the battery system for G.M.’s EV1. He said that mistakes from the EV1 provided important lessons that were incorporated into Coda's battery system, especially as it relates to managing the temperature of the cells. "The importance of thermal management is paramount," Gow said.

Gow spent a lot of time discussing the Coda sedan’s active thermal management system, a kind of air conditioning system—with heating and cooling—specifically designed to keep batteries cool in the summer and warm in the winter. He said that keeping the batteries warm in cold weather would ensure promised driving range, and keeping them cool in hot weather would ensure a long life for the battery pack, at least eight years.

In terms of EV batteries, size does matter, according to Gow. “It was very important to us to have the largest practical battery so that people could have the maximum possible range.” He emphasized that the Coda’s battery at 34 kWh is 40 percent larger than any other electric sedan coming out in the near future. Coda is promising 120 miles on a full charge.

Gow also described the benefits of using a 6.6 kW charger, rather than the 3.3 kW charger found on the Nissan LEAF. According to Gow, the bigger charger means that one hour of charging will yield 20 miles of additional range, instead of 10 miles with the smaller charger.