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

[John Painter]

I didn't see December as the build date there.

You're correct, my error looking at some other EM comments, the release says 4th qtr.

I'm still saying December.

 

[TCBronson]

It's important for my sanity to see the glass as half-full with this news. It'll be easy to go the half-empty route and think of that bad news that comes with this. But there HAS been a lot of good things happen just in the past 2.5 months.

Roush as the Lead Engineering partner, 100 pre-production vehicles to be build in 4th quarter. That's the news in just the last 2 days.

So my fellow forum folks... think positively, type positively, Elio gas tank is half-full.

Well said and I agree!

 

[floydv]

I see it as a pretty brilliant move. In one stroke, EM gets 100 pre-production vehicles built (gaining manufacturing experience while doing so), get a couple fleets out there to test them under various driving cycles and providing useful feedback that can only help Roush improve the product, and they get an income stream to do testing and advertising they otherwise would've had to spend money to do.

Win, win, win across the board, IMO.

 

[John Painter]

Ah, and I missed the "in Shreveport" part. Nice.

That is very interesting. It suggests Elio Motors/Comau will need to start setting up the plant in July, if Comau's three month lead timeline is accurate.

 

[John Painter]

It's important for my sanity to see the glass as half-full with this news. It'll be easy to go the half-empty route and think of that bad news that comes with this. But there HAS been a lot of good things happen just in the past 2.5 months.

Roush as the Lead Engineering partner, 100 pre-production vehicles to be build in 4th quarter. That's the news in just the last 2 days.

So my fellow forum folks... think positively, type positively, Elio gas tank is half-full.

I agree it's a bit of a shock to the system, to see signs of Elio Motors actually starting to produce vehicles. I get that. And the 100 vehicles are not yet produced, however it's hard for me to not think.... Oh God it's actually starting to happen.

 

[John Painter]

I see it as a pretty brilliant move. In one stroke, EM gets 100 pre-production vehicles built (gaining manufacturing experience while doing so), get a couple fleets out there to test them under various driving cycles and providing useful feedback that can only help Roush improve the product, and they get an income stream to do testing and advertising they otherwise would've had to spend money to do.

Win, win, win across the board, IMO.

You forgot the ridiculous amount of publicity 100 of these things on the roads is likely to generate.... just in time for the summer driving season, as people are getting tax returns (hopefully), etc.

 

[floydv]

You forgot the ridiculous amount of publicity 100 of these things on the roads is likely to generate.... just in time for the summer driving season, as people are getting tax returns (hopefully), etc.

Nope, we're on the same page

and they get an income stream to do testing and advertising they otherwise would've had to spend money to do

 

[floydv]

That is very interesting. It suggests Elio Motors/Comau will need to start setting up the plant in July, if Comau's three month lead timeline is accurate.

Maybe so, but I'm thinking not necessarily. I thought I read that the 25 test series vehicles were to be produced using a "lite" version of the final production line, in order to gain learnings from the limited production run that can be applied to the final production process. So maybe Comau won't need to accelerate their timeline, but instead they just need to help set up the pre-production line for this limited run.

 

[John Painter]

What gets me is the wording saying they need to sell the 100 for the revenue. Maybe it was just odd wording, but the profit from selling just 100 is so small compared to the stock sale. I like the idea of have 100 beta units in the wild, just smells funny selling them.

Unless they are being sold for WAY over $7k.

I wonder if Roush insisted on 100 E-series instead of 25, needing the higher number of units to get the tuning down?

And no crash testing before production?

What makes you think the building of 25 engineering vehicles has stopped? That is happening. Roush's role is to fine tune the mass produced production vehicle. I doubt the money Elio Motors raises from fleet sales of 100 vehicles will help their bottom line.

I strongly suspect Elio Motors having the ability to say their vehicles are safe as evidenced by simulations and testing of 25 engineering vehicle, and they have produced vehicles on their factory lines, and sold them to the public (fleet sales), and there's a flood gate of 50,000+ reservations right behind, makes them look awful sweet to VC money and DoE.

 

[John Painter]

Maybe so, but I'm thinking not necessarily. I thought I read that the 25 test series vehicles were to be produced using a "lite" version of the final production line, in order to gain learnings from the limited production run that can be applied to the final production process. So maybe Comau won't need to accelerate their timeline, but instead they just need to help set up the pre-production line for this limited run.

The 25 engineering vehicles are being built by Technosports Creative in Livonia Michigan. The 100 pre-production vehicles for fleet sales will be built in Shreveport LA, in Elio's factory, I think it would be peculiar for EM not to use the time to set up the hard tooling the engineering build is supposed to establish.