I’d like to believe that Paul went into this with good intentions, I believe Paul is a lousy businessman and probably an average, to below average ‘engineer,’ but that’s not a judgment as much as an editorial. There are many other qualities that he may have that outweigh those two. The scenario I see, is Paul first slowly discovering that ‘success’ doesn’t necessarily have to include making the vehicle. He learns a little from Stu about ‘wealth creation’ and a little from Hari; both leveraging real estate and some manufacturing equipment, and also learns that the ATVM loan ‘possibilities’ alone are enough to generate interest among some buyers and investors. They ‘outsource’ engineering services to themselves as ESG Engineering and arguably overcharge for either unnecessary and/or almost immediately obsolete designs. Paul has a bit of an ego and wants to also try for a new engine: no one is concerned as this allows more ‘churn’ and latitude with costs and places to ‘spend’ money. Slowly they realize that it’s getting more and more obvious that the numbers and projections just don’t add up, and as the ‘clock runs out’, there is nothing ‘Advanced Technology.’
They tried to associate themselves all along with ‘partners’ in the form of ‘Letters of Intent’ (which mean very little) and some bigger players like Roush (and that other company they owed millions to but settled for like $80,000). But all that slowly dissolved and none of the ‘partners’ ever mentioned Elio. The ATVM carrot is always ‘out there,’ and Hari, in particular, knows it’s a big draw to the Elio Interested that it’s mere possibility is a compelling marketing tool. They know they can always say ‘other funding is being pursued.’
They also know that any public disclosure from the DoE regarding the ATVM loan’s true status (which was never good) is not for public consumption: this I believe became the main component of their ‘business plan’ rather early on.
Those comments from the assemblers say it all, the mantra was probably ‘just coast and count the money we got, we’re not getting much more, but let this play out and it will just die on the vine, we get too greedy and we’ll lose any credibility: we did everything we could!’
Of course, this is merely my interpretation of a possible chain of events (although maybe not in order and lots of overlapping) and is meant as pure fiction, for entertainment purposes only!!