cordovaSQLitePlugin not executing queries in a angularjs controller with ionic framework

I'm trying to execute some queries on a sqlite database but its not working if I do it in a angularjs controller.

My controller looks like this:

.controller('BrowseCtrl', function($scope,$cordovaSQLite,$timeout,ProductService){

  var dbName = 'spareParts.db';
  var db = $cordovaSQLite.openDB(dbName);

  var query = "SELECT c.name as name, c.id as id FROM cars as c";

  db.transaction(function(tx) {
    tx.executeSql(query, [], function(tx, res) {
        if(res.rows.length > 0) {
            for(var i = 0; i<res.rows.length; i++) {
                var entry = res.rows.item(i);
                console.log("Entry ID: "+entry.id);

            }
        } else {
            console.log("No results found");
        }

    }, function(e) {
        console.log("ERROR: " + e.message);
    });
  });
})

If I use the same code in the .run function of the app.js everything works great. Like here:

.run(function($ionicPlatform, $cordovaSQLite) {
    $ionicPlatform.ready(function() {

    ...

    var dbName = 'spareParts.db';
    db = $cordovaSQLite.openDB(dbName);

    var query = "SELECT c.name as name, c.id as id FROM cars as c";

    db.transaction(function(tx) { 

    ...

So what did I miss? I also imported the ng-cordova.min.js above the cordova.js explained here: http://ift.tt/1zsfJve

Thanks for any help.