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Elio P5 At Detroit Auto Show

floydv

floydv

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I hope they straighten out the seam between the rear hatch and the roof. It looks a bit hinky.

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Ekh

Ekh

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John Painter said:
The best guess is they have not started building yet.

I think it's reasonable to think that month 0 on Elio Motors timetable is February 1 - when they close the offering, though they have not verified that. For the first couple of months they will be releasing the engineering drawing to partners e.g. body panels, wiring harness, etc. The vehicles will be built pretty much at the same time over a three to four week period. According to EM, the engineering vehicles will be built on a pilot manufacturing line to simulate the production build so that issues with the process or parts can be addressed by various engineering and components teams. Yes everything is dependent on the stock offering, though we do know that it was successful and they will be building the 25 engineering vehicles with that money. Below is the timeline Elio Motors used to illustrate how they expect the process to flow. I still think we will know before August whether the ATVM will happen or not and whether Elio Motors will go into production or, potentially, go bust. I think this is very exciting, and slightly patriotic to watch as the story unfolds in an age when most manufacturing is done overseas and knowing this company's dedication to US manufacturing.
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Thanks for the Gantt chart, John. visualization help a lot! I'd amend it by saying we know that final engineering drawings have been underway for several weeks and that parts ordering is well under way for non-engineered parts. Supply chain lag time -- when somebody runs late with a critical part -- jeopardizes the whole process, so it's to EM's interest to get all parts ordered ASAP, especially the engineered parts. Also, I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of stagger and overlap in activities -- many of which are in fact going along right now. For instance, the manufacturing team (one guy plus contractors) is hard at it right now, so that the e-cars can be built using manufacturing jigs where feasible.

It's likewise to EM's interest to get those cars built and tested, fuel economy and durability first -- mpg because that's what they have to prove to DOE, and durability because, gee, it takes the longest to do! So there's a real rush to get the e-cars done. Long poles are supply chain and maybe some finicky engineering bits.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

One of the differences between P5 and e-cars is the use of production-spec'ed parts for things done as one-offs up to now. For instance, A-arm stampings, glass instead of plexi for windshield and mirrors, upgraded attachments for the exhaust tunnel housing, body panels made of the actual formed plastic compound, instead of fibreglas, and probably about a zillion others that aren't coming to mind at present. For a lot of these parts suppliers will have to build molds, jigs, CNC profiles, etc. So it isn't a lightning process to get all this done as promptly as needed.

If EM can get actual production parts by encouraging suppliers to jump in, that will save EM and suppliers money in the long run. But it means assuming some risk on the part of the suppliers who have to tool up for just 25 cars. It's a problem I wouldn't want to be in charge of solving!
 
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