Factory Pickup, Retail Store Pickup, Or Delivery

[Craig]

11% of the price of the vehicle seems a little steep to me.

Post #10
http://www.elioowners.com/threads/two-more-cents.2158/#post-32798

 

[Craig]

Didn't I see/read somewhere the destination charge was 750.00 ??? or was that speculation again LOL

Post #10
http://www.elioowners.com/threads/two-more-cents.2158/#post-32798

 

[NSTG8R]

The idea of removing the rear wheel, at the factory, adding a WIDE wheeled dolly, then shipping the vehicle to a distribution center, remounting the tire, shipping the dollies back to the factory, just looks like a lot of costly/wasted motion and expense.


My thought is this, using conventional double deck car carriers, with NO modifications, build 14/18" long dollies with 4"(?) roller bearing type wheels for the rear wheel to follow the conventional tire rails, both left and right. I unit, built with the correct angle, would then be clamped to the rear tire, not the frame or any other attachment point.


Quote.by G1 'the Elio would take up the same amount of space in transport as any other car as it is the same length and to make it shippable on a standard dual rail auto transport truck it will become a four wheel vehicle'

Not Necessarily


Now, when loading a car carrier for a distributing point, the first E would be equipped with this light weight dolly to tract the left front wheel driven straight forward, the second would be backed on with the dolly set up to also track the left front wheel. I know it will drive Funny but we're not going very far, just on and off the trailer.

The Elio is about 13' long(?), or so, if they were to load two Elios on the carriers this way, tail to tail, they would not equate to 26/28/30', with a shipping separation, but maybe(?) 18 to 20' total. These little dollies would ship back to the factory a lot cheaper than a much bigger unit with out ever removing the rear tire....


As I am not a Rocket scientist nor an engineer, if I see a problem, I'll try to find a way to solve it.


Yep... been slow 'round here.

Brilliant! I get what you're saying! Wouldn't be any worse than driving a '70 Nova down the road (Well, most the one's I've seen track like a crab ).

 

[tazairforce]

Brilliant! I get what you're saying! Wouldn't be any worse than driving a '70 Nova down the road (Well, most the one's I've seen track like a crab ).

Thanks for your reply, I thought I may have carried that thought to far/deep for some.

 

[JDub]

​

Well, Let's hope Amtrak is still running in Indiana a year from now.

 

[JDub]

Since Paul is has been quoted as saying "I don't think the marshaling points will be needed the first year," I wonder where the cars will be shipped TO? It's not like UPS can drop one off along with your box of fancy soap -- and Amazon's drones aren't yet up to the job. You think the company will be able to get 60-odd sales centers set up by the time manufacturing starts? (I don't). My guess that most of the first year's production (the all-inners) will HAVE to get their cars in Shreveport!

Perhaps they will ship them to the nearest Pep Boys. They could do the option install and delivery prep.

 

[goofyone]

The idea of removing the rear wheel, at the factory, adding a WIDE wheeled dolly, then shipping the vehicle to a distribution center, remounting the tire, shipping the dollies back to the factory, just looks like a lot of costly/wasted motion and expense.

My thought is this, using conventional double deck car carriers, with NO modifications, build 14/18" long dollies with 4"(?) roller bearing type wheels for the rear wheel to follow the conventional tire rails, both left and right. I unit, built with the correct angle, would then be clamped to the rear tire, not the frame or any other attachment point.

Quote.by G1 'the Elio would take up the same amount of space in transport as any other car as it is the same length and to make it shippable on a standard dual rail auto transport truck it will become a four wheel vehicle'

Not Necessarily

Now, when loading a car carrier for a distributing point, the first E would be equipped with this light weight dolly to tract the left front wheel driven straight forward, the second would be backed on with the dolly set up to also track the left front wheel. I know it will drive Funny but we're not going very far, just on and off the trailer.

The Elio is about 13' long(?), or so, if they were to load two Elios on the carriers this way, tail to tail, they would not equate to 26/28/30', with a shipping separation, but maybe(?) 18 to 20' total. These little dollies would ship back to the factory a lot cheaper than a much bigger unit with out ever removing the rear tire....

As I am not a Rocket scientist nor an engineer, if I see a problem, I'll try to find a way to solve it.

Yep... been slow 'round here.

This is some good thinking!

I am the first to admit that we really don't even have a complete grasp of what the whole dolly idea entails as all we have are some general descriptions. The way I see it removing the rear wheel may not be necessary for the dolly as they could simply use a drive on dolly which then straps to the wheel.

Backing a vehicle in reverse up the ramps, especially up to the top deck, while it is at an odd angle, without the benefit of good rearward visibility, all without the small wheeled dolly getting caught in the track separations sounds like something which may or may not really work efficiently however this is something we may have to try to find out how well it does.

I am sure Elio Motors will end up trying several ideas to find out what works best for them as there a likely plenty of ways to accomplish this task while using existing infrastructure. I doubt anyone has ever tried to tackle this issue at the scale Elio Motors will need to so it will be very interesting to see how all this plays out over time.

 

[tazairforce]

This is some good thinking!

I am the first to admit that we really don't even have a complete grasp of what the whole dolly idea entails as all we have are some general descriptions. The way I see it removing the rear wheel may not be necessary for the dolly as they could simply use a drive on dolly which then straps to the wheel.

Backing a vehicle in reverse up the ramps, especially up to the top deck, while it is at an odd angle, without the benefit of good rearward visibility, all without the small wheeled dolly getting caught in the track separations sounds like something which may or may not really work efficiently however this is something we may have to try to find out how well it does.

I am sure Elio Motors will end up trying several ideas to find out what works best for them as there a likely plenty of ways to accomplish this task while using existing infrastructure. I doubt anyone has ever tried to tackle this issue at the scale Elio Motors will need to so it will be very interesting to see how all this plays out over time.

Goofy, Have you ever loaded one of your trailers, in a condition such as this, with out a spotter, someone to let you know whats happening?? I think not!

 

[skygazer6033]

Good thinking Taz but I really don't think it will work. With the tail wheel dolly tracking the left front wheel (or right for that matter) the effective front wheel track is going to be reduced from 64 inches to maybe 54 inches. I don't think the front tires will fit the channels. I really don't have any ideas myself but I do think it would make more sense to modify the trailers with temporary center channels rather than modify the cars with transport dollys.

 

[goofyone]

While just doing a little bit of digging into the transport issue I found that shipping by rail should be very straightforward as auto transport rail carriers in this country appear to have full decks so the center third wheel should not be an issue.

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However what I did discover is that doubling up front to back will be difficult on modern auto transport trailers because of the way they have to fold up to maximize car carrying capacity while avoiding obstacles such as the trailer and drive axles.

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