Say adios to your Elio reservation

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Just browsed through Elio Motors K1 filing.

$144M in debt and a claim that $376M is needed to start production. And if that's not good enough they are being fined for not having a manufacturer's license and not creating the jobs promised to the state of Louisana and that could eventually exceed $8M when the smoke clears.

Great concept, better price and all the right stuff in the car, just no car for sale to the public.
 
I've been watching this for a while. Just goes to show you how difficult it is to bring a vehicle into production. And how things depend on the economy.

When gas is up to $5/gal, this thing would look a lot better. There's a whole lot of people who can't afford a $25K hybrid or more for a Tesla. A full size motorcycle is going to run over $10K and have fun driving it during the winter in New England. Or getting to work in the rain. A two seater car for $8K and 50+mpg could look pretty good to a lot of people. That said, we'll never know whether the Elio projections were realistic or not.
 
It kinda smelled like a scam when they were advertising a $6800 base price in the beginning. That's how you attract suckers I guess. However, I always thought they'd have better success by marketing that car as a kit. They could've bypassed most of the red tape that way. In the end Paul is still a winner, paying himself a 250k salary thanks to the 60,000 suckers who bought in.
 
Those Valeo [censored] were part of this. Good it failed.

and the company relied on CROWDFUNDING?????

Where is the 20% investment with Toyota... GM? No major car maker for support? Wow, why would you do this? You simply cannot build a car today without investment from current auto industry. You just have to make sure they don't own over 50% of the company.

Even Tesla had investments from Toyota and others (latter dumped) but you need that kind of investment to enter the market.
 
Originally Posted By: funflyer
In the end Paul is still a winner, paying himself a 250k salary thanks to the 60,000 suckers who bought in.


Sounds like he needs a nice long stay at the Gray Bar Hotel.
 
This reminds me of a scam about 40 years ago. It was a three-wheeled car called the “Dale”.
 
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Wait till the feds start sniffing around. Can't believe the guy is still walking around. Although the guy isn't dumb by any means, just shady.
 
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
Those Valeo [censored] were part of this. Good it failed.

and the company relied on CROWDFUNDING?????

Where is the 20% investment with Toyota... GM? No major car maker for support? Wow, why would you do this? You simply cannot build a car today without investment from current auto industry. You just have to make sure they don't own over 50% of the company.

Even Tesla had investments from Toyota and others (latter dumped) but you need that kind of investment to enter the market.


What did Valeo do? I know they shut down Rochester, NY and moved it to Mex but would be interesting to know what they're up to.
 
Wife wanted to put down a deposit on one, this is exactly why I told her to wait until they bring something to market. Now she's quite happy with her Versa which has a surprising amount of cargo room for such a small vehicle (yay, hatchback!), can park just about anywhere, comfortably seats 4, and gets an honest 40 mpg on the freeway if there's no traffic.
 
The Elio was a rehash of the same failed “eco” 3 wheeled idea that’s been around for the better part of a century. It’s impractical and real people don’t want incapable cars. It failed in Europe and it failed here.

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Too bad this vehicle will never be produced. It's a great design, but a poor business plan. Paul doomed himself by insisting on having full control of the company. That approach would've been great if he could've secured the ATVM loan, but private investors would never go for that. I put down a $100 deposit, but I didn't have enough confidence in the business model to go all in at $1000. I'm glad I didn't...
 
The "Smart" car in Europe is a one litre turbocharged diesel. It gets really great mileage. In the US we can buy a smart car that is not diesel, not turbocharged, and is in fact a sorta small basic FI 4 cyl 4 stroke thing that gets lousy mileage when one takes into account how small and light it is. I hate to see people go out of bisiness, or get their deposit go by bye, but anyone who would put good money down on that Elio thing already got a screw loose. $6/gallon gas? not any time soon
 
Originally Posted By: silverbar
The "Smart" car in Europe is a one litre turbocharged diesel. It gets really great mileage. In the US we can buy a smart car that is not diesel, not turbocharged, and is in fact a sorta small basic FI 4 cyl 4 stroke thing that gets lousy mileage when one takes into account how small and light it is. I hate to see people go out of bisiness, or get their deposit go by bye, but anyone who would put good money down on that Elio thing already got a screw loose. $6/gallon gas? not any time soon


We got the diesel version in Canada. Had one, was unbelievable on fuel. Best tank was 2.9L/100, or a little over 80 MPG.
 
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