Elio Kit, Would You Still Buy?

[creekstone]

Gino has qualifications, that is the kind of guy you hire to start, but he needs a massive competent experienced team underneath him to execute, and long before he can do that, and transform that entire facility, they need hundreds of millions of dollars.

Absolutely true. And acknowledged by Elio Motors.

I was under the impression hiring for the plant would be in 2015.

 

[whattheelf]

Absolutely true. And acknowledged by Elio Motors.

I was under the impression hiring for the plant would be in 2015.

From this article linked below today, likely alot of risk/delay comes from the forthcoming IAV engine development, supposedly engines by late this summer. The whisper of there being an electric version down the road really makes things interesting, if not even a compelling backup plan. An entirely new engine design scares the living bejeezus out of me all by itself.

You have to admit, its a really cool vehicle, its so so easy to love it, it oozes character, especially at the proposed price. I am really trying to ignore all of the business realities they face here, and I keep wondering how is it they don't have double the reservations really, as for the number of potential buyers, they could be ferreting out far more early adopters I would think. Maybe a much lower reservation deposit price point would attract considerably more quasi committed future buyers, just something to add more fuel for projecting the kinds of numbers that would support securing the funding.

http://www.cartalk.com/blogs/jim-motavalli/crowd-pleaser-6800-84-mpg-elio-getting-closer

 

[Snick]

Absolutely true. And acknowledged by Elio Motors.

I was under the impression hiring for the plant would be in 2015.

If the plan is to wait until 2015 to begin hiring the Manufacturing Operations team for the plant, that is a plan for failure. You need an aggressive, experienced, fully competent, hard hitting squad of at LEAST 50-75 FTE employees with the full breadth of capabilities ON THE PLANT FLOOR 13-16 months in advance to develop the pilot line then plan for scale up.

This stuff is REALLLY REALLLLLLY hard. Did I mention it's hard? And I'm not even talking about the distribution/retail/service/warranty chain. And no, Pep Boys can NOT do that entirely themselves. That is also part of the integrated whole that make stuff realllllly hard.

I work for a fortune 50 company and we even struggle.

 

[Brian1362]

Seeing that Elio Motors is not likely to raise its 200M by next year, would you still buy if the business model changed to producing a kit version?

Assume kit includes:

• frame, chassis, doors, hinges
• Signals, mirrors, exterior lights, glass
• Interior bits--dash, HVAC controls with flaps, heater, AC box, fan, blank port for radio/GPS/electronics
• Reinforced engine and transmission mount points and customizable hardware for most transverse 3 or 4 cylinder donor engines, including fluid-filled pendulum style mount bushings. Includes "dog-bone" bushings and various mounting points to prevent front/back engine swing.
• exhaust mount hangers and brackets with many mount locations and heat shielding kit.
• Emblems, paint options, protective coatings options.
• Latches, locks, pre-keyed. Hood and trunk struts as options.
• Recommended tire and wheel list.
• Suspension components with options for tune-ability.
• Brakes or brake recommendations for 'plug & play' friendliness.
• Engine/transmission recommended list with build sheets and wiring harness rewiring guides.
• gas tank or bladder with mounts and pumps.
• Shipping to your front door

If you had to provide the drivetrain and integrate it, would you buy?

Please be open-minded and just treat this as a "what if?" question.

Abso-daggum-lutely not. If I wanted to come up with/build something myself, I would. But why spend all of my hard earned money and energy for something I have to build? That is like people paying 2500 bucks for a bicycle - that you still have to PEDAL.

 

[Brian1362]

For What It's Worth: this is probably highly valuable data for EM--don't be surprised if they are secretly trying to gather this data...current business model is overly dependent on inexperienced parts suppliers that know NOTHING of manufacturing vehicles. No shop, no money, no distribution centers, broken supply chain, no hiring, no execution plan beyond R&D means EM has about a 0.3% chance of successful launch with current business plan.

At least if they offer a kit version, they could sell tens or hundreds of thousands of them!

They would only be gleaning data like this from people who post "what if" questions like this.

As far as inexperienced suppliers, I would like to know what you base that on, as CooperTires is NOT an inexperienced company. Also, unless you really haven't read on the eliomotors.com website, under suppliers, when you click each one, on the left it gives icons of the companies they supply to. GM, Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep to name a few of who these "inexperienced parts suppliers" supply to. Firestone Tire company, though NOT a manufacturer of vehicles (fair enough), have made and supplied countless tires to countless automobile manufacturers.

Shall I go on, or would you rather I stop? Never mind, I won't.

Also, I am sure IAV,who is developing the engine for Elio (which has badges from noted vehicle manufacturers sucyh as Ferari, Bugatti, Audi BMW, Mercedes) though they are NOT a vechicle manufacturer (fair enough) have quite the experince in designing, testing supplying parts to these vehicle manufacturers.

Bottom line, you seem to be one who needs to read the list of suppliers, and find out who they supply to, before saying they are "inexperienced parts suppliers."

Here endeth the lesson.

 

[whattheelf]

They would only be gleaning data like this from people who post "what if" questions like this.

As far as inexperienced suppliers, I would like to know what you base that on, as CooperTires is NOT an inexperienced company. Also, unless you really haven't read on the eliomotors.com website, under suppliers, when you click each one, on the left it gives icons of the companies they supply to. GM, Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep to name a few of who these "inexperienced parts suppliers" supply to. Firestone Tire company, though NOT a manufacturer of vehicles (fair enough), have made and supplied countless tires to countless automobile manufacturers.

Shall I go on, or would you rather I stop? Never mind, I won't.

Also, I am sure IAV,who is developing the engine for Elio (which has badges from noted vehicle manufacturers sucyh as Ferari, Bugatti, Audi BMW, Mercedes) though they are NOT a vechicle manufacturer (fair enough) have quite the experince in designing, testing supplying parts to these vehicle manufacturers.

Bottom line, you seem to be one who needs to read the list of suppliers, and find out who they supply to, before saying they are "inexperienced parts suppliers."

Here endeth the lesson.

Experienced or inexperienced suppliers are the very least of EM's problems. The first problem is you have to actually be flush with cash to pay the suppliers, and then those suppliers have to also meet both quality and delivery requirements, and then some sort of factory needs to be able to synchronize very efficiently. A tire company is the very least of the least of the supply chain issue.

Will be interesting to see if/show IAV executes by later this summer, that's a pile of cash needed to fund a ground up engine design.

 

[creekstone]

The first problem is you have to actually be flush with cash

That's a problem I can relate to!

Like you, I'm waiting for the next domino to fall (engine, funding, whatever!).

 

[Horn]

wait......You are saying $6200 for a kit car or $6800 already built.....Well this is a no brainer! No one in their right mind would buy the kit car.

Would you rather buy a 69 camaro all in pieces for 15k or would you rather pay 16.5k for it running and ready to go?

 

[Snick]

Cooper Tires and some of the other suppliers are very experienced at the parts they produce. But the don't know D.I.D.D.L.Y squat about putting parts together into a whole car that functions safely and effectively. You can get suppliers to make sub-assemblies even, but you can't outsource your entire car--if no one has "ownership" over the whole project, then no one is accountable, and it WILL FAIL.

 

[goofyone]

Cooper Tires and some of the other suppliers are very experienced at the parts they produce. But the don't know D.I.D.D.L.Y squat about putting parts together into a whole car that functions safely and effectively. You can get suppliers to make sub-assemblies even, but you can't outsource your entire car--if no one has "ownership" over the whole project, then no one is accountable, and it WILL FAIL.

Thank you for pointing this out as it serves to highlight one of the great ideas Elio Motors uses to push this project forward while avoiding the very problem you mentioned. Elio Motors holds monthly supplier summits where Elio Motors designers, engineers, and the suppliers all get together to make sure everyone is on the same page.

The vehicle production continues to make significant progress at our monthly Supplier Summit held this week in Michigan. The Summit is where the Elio Motors team of supplier partners, engineers, designers and manufacturing folks get together to work on the vehicle as a team. The outcome is always inspiring and the energy that this process generates is contagious. This week we had 30 supplier partners and over 100 professionals participate in the meeting. There is nothing quite like getting a group of really smart people in a room to move a great project forward. See for yourself…

http://eliomotors.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/super-bowl-with-elio-13114/