Factory Pickup, Retail Store Pickup, Or Delivery

[skygazer6033]

The rail shipping part should be no problem. The trucking part will be a nightmare. Truck drivers are not going to want to be screwing around with dollys and they're not going to like deadheading back to the railhead. With all the extra work involved in shipping I'm beginning to think the $750 estimate may have been too low.

 

[goofyone]

I dont see the dollys as being an issue for the truck drivers at all. The dollys are a hassle for Elio Motors as it is likely that dollys will be installed by EM employees prior to loading onto trucks and then be removed by EM employees at the distribution centers and/or retail stores after being unloaded.

The efficient way to return the dollies to the Shreveport plant would be to simply to palletize them and return them in a standard box trailer as these should be making routine deliveries to the distribution centers anyway. Returning dollys from the retail stores to the distribution centers should just be a matter of loading them onto the next auto carrier which drops off a load and is heading back to the distribution center for more vehicles.

As for deadheading back to the railhead, the factory has a rail loading facility GM used and it would be logical to place the distribution centers at or near the rail unloading facility as this is the way most automakers handle vehicle distribution via rail.

 

[zelio]

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.

[Broken External Image]

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.

[Broken External Image]

Thanks for posting these pictures, Goofyone. It is fascinating information. I have seen many of the rail carriers as well as the truck carriers but always on the move. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. :-) Z

 

[Rickb]

I think truckers will be happy trucking something again........moving thousands of Elios.

 

[Jeff Porter]

Granted it won't be there initially, but at 500 cars/day upgrading trailers is going to make sense pretty fast.
Edit: at 500/day and 60 starting markets, that's 8 cars per day per market.

Something to consider... EM won't be at 500 cars / day, looking at the production graph, until they've produced 20,000 vehicles during the first 90 days. And that's if all goes as planned. They have a lot of vehicles to deliver, not everyone will be able to get to the plant, so they will have to figure something out for sure.

 

[wayne kemp]

I just love all those that take Paul's word for 500 per day when he can't keep production dates or give a firm price at least for those that are ALL IN.
But dreaming is good I guess. This is like a ball game, no one knows the score till the game is over.
Let the cheerleading continue. It's still fun. LOL

 

[Jeff Porter]

One assumption that appears to be in this thread: the 60 stores will be up and ready and waiting when production starts. Or, even within a month after production starts. Makes sense that they won't need the sales functions and people all ready to go for several months after production. But is it a valid assumption, or do we have information, that says the 60 stores will be able to accept these first vehicles and be the pickup location for the customer?

I guess I had the vision (in my tiny little mind) that the vehicles would be prepped and ready for the customer before they start on their journey to the customer. Maybe the options are, or are not, all installed at the plant, again for these first say 20k vehicles. But before each vehicle gets on the "shipping" path to the customer, the vehicle would be done-done. I understand that may not be the way vehicles are shipped now, but it is interesting to see where things are the same and where things will be very different.

Someone lay it out for me... will the marshalling centers be ready to go when production starts? How many marshalling centers will there be, IIRC it was around 7-9? Maybe there's only one marshalling center for the first month or two... perhaps the vehicle goes from plant to marshalling center(s), gets options installed, it is now ready for the customer, then makes its final journey to the customer. Again, talking about 'our' vehicles here, the first 20k-30k.

And for me as an example, I'm 60 miles from the nearest interstate highway, and about 120 miles from North Platte NE, where there is a huge railroad yard. Options are that EM would provide me the date and time where I'd need to be, to sign for it and drive it home, whether it's in North Platte or a decent sized town on an interstate (I-70 or I-80) and delivered by semi.

Maybe Pep Boys locations can help until the 60 stores are ready? Apologies if I'm all over the place on this.

 

[karl]

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

Would you feel better about the cost of shipping if they jacked up the selling price?

 

[JEBar]

One assumption that appears to be in this thread: the 60 stores will be up and ready and waiting when production starts. Or, even within a month after production starts. Makes sense that they won't need the sales functions and people all ready to go for several months after production. But is it a valid assumption, or do we have information, that says the 60 stores will be able to accept these first vehicles and be the pickup location for the customer?

I guess I had the vision (in my tiny little mind) that the vehicles would be prepped and ready for the customer before they start on their journey to the customer. Maybe the options are, or are not, all installed at the plant, again for these first say 20k vehicles. But before each vehicle gets on the "shipping" path to the customer, the vehicle would be done-done. I understand that may not be the way vehicles are shipped now, but it is interesting to see where things are the same and where things will be very different.

you raise some interesting points, hopefully someone who know the answers will respond .... if not, it would be nice if some of the folks here would ask when they attend one of the coming shows

Jim

 

[BernieB]

Elio told me today that if we had a 1000 all in that we are invited to watch our cars completed and there would be no shipping. My only problem is it will cost me the same to get there than they would charge for shipping

I hope this is true....... #4277 and have gotten my 2 number , yet.