100 Preproduction Elio's To Be Built In December!!

[Trusting]

All this talk about fleet sales and rental car companies and a problem with carrying enough luggage makes me all the more sure that Elios need more luggage space.

 

[bowers baldwin]

And who will the 100 Elios be racing against? I might be wrong but, I don't think there is even a sanctioned event that has a classification for reverse trikes.

Umm, I think Elio would get creamed in a 3 wheeled race at this point. Everything with 3 wheels right now are performance based.

 

[Bamdalam]

Only 100. And these were always going to be built first, but now they are going to be sold to one or two fleet customers. Elio will collect data from these units and get paid for the units. Win win.

Seems like I remember fleet pricing starts at a qty. of 5. Hopefully there will be many smaller fleets peppered across the country, instead of having all of them concentrated in one or two areas.

 

[Ty]

Seems like I remember fleet pricing starts at a qty. of 5. Hopefully there will be many smaller fleets peppered across the country, instead of having all of them concentrated in one or two areas.

Unfortunately, it makes more sense for them to be close the the engineering team. When someone calls in and says they have a cracked cross member or something, you don't want to have to ship it or the engineers across country to evaluate the issue.

 

[Jeff Porter]

I think we maybe over analyzing that statement. The key word here is "SELL". Nobody sells an incomplete product so I'm thinking it's a complete, fully tested vehicle down to the last detail and road worthy- that's Roush job to get it done. That will eliminate our concern for possible lawsuits. Now my understanding of PRE-PRODUCTION is a limited number just for the chosen few as in this case, for fleet customers and not available for the general public....yet! Think "limited edition". It's very interesting to find out how much will these 100 units will be priced! I can almost guarantee it won't be $6,800.

Yep, most definitely we are over-analyzing things. lol

 

[skygazer6033]

I respectfully disagree Ty. I believe these vehicles should be scattered around the country in order to get the most divergent sampling of environments and conditions possible. High temperatures and low, high and low altitudes, high speed cruising to dodging pot holes. A good sampling of everything a consumer might encounter. If all the vehicles are near the engineering site it would be handy but you really wouldn't get a good feel for problems that might be encountered in other locations.

 

[Marshall]

If the 100 are to be sold instead of being used for internal use, then the "delay" should only be 100 vehicles for internal use. That's only a 1 day delay according to their schedule, right?

The purpose of the pre-production vehicles is to get feedback prior to production. Not to fill an order. Therefore, there must be time to get the feedback before final assembly for the production model begins. The amount of time will be affected by the nature of the feedback. I'd just plan on another six month to a year.

BUT, I think I heard the payments on the factory begin in July, so there is great incentive to bring the pre-production phase to it's conclusion.

I'm near the end of the All-In group so I am hoping for delivery by Christmas 2017. I realize those who have been waiting substantially longer are disappointed, but I see it as the dream meeting the reality. The dreamer expects no major delays while the reality is that almost everything causes delays.

 

[Jeff Porter]

They will "fine tune" the production line with the first Elio produced and forevermore with the 2nd. They'll start off making one and there will be a break before the 2nd. Each car will be an opportunity to fix any issues with the production line. Surely, you'd have to agree that 100 practice runs would be enough to get the process down.

Your experience with assembly lines and having worked in Shreveport will always be a diamond in the rough on this forum Ty. I appreciate it!

For those of us that have no experience, it's difficult to understand the how / when / where / why. What seems to make sense might be close to real-world and it might be way off. Continue to get us back on track as needed.

 

[AriLea]

View attachment 8770
Umm, I think Elio would get creamed in a 3 wheeled race at this point. Everything with 3 wheels right now are performance based.

Depends on the track, and how you outfit the tires on your Elio. A tRex has some interesting acceleration, but at some point they lose it on a turn. An Elio with good rubber, will have a lot better g-force rating on a turn. Still the two would probably be considered different race categories and not compete directly. You couldn't drag-race against a tRex, but I wouldn't take the tRex fast down Pikes Peak. In an Elio, probably much safer.
Going uphill on Pikes-Peak, I'm betting on the Elio, to at least make it there.

 

[Adamant]

All this talk about fleet sales and rental car companies and a problem with carrying enough luggage makes me all the more sure that Elios need more luggage space.

That would certainly make a cool option.