Financing Elio Motors Development And Production

[Rickb]

This poses as a conundrum. Rather a chicken & egg problem.
That is where the private placement cash comes in to get Elio
to the "Confidence level" for the ATVM to be a slam dunk........

If there isn't even enough money funded soon to even build the 25 prototypes and much much more to tool up the factory for production, speculation of how many prototypes and what the plan was or might be to do with them is moot.

I have to stop with my recollection of what Elio or Elio reps said a year ago because it means nothing without the funding announcement. They didn't have the funding then and don't have it today. I may need a break until the funding is declared and in the bank in next months Tech Talk along with Paul Elio doing a money dance.

 

[Jim H]

If there isn't even enough money funded soon to even build the 25 prototypes and much much more to tool up the factory for production, speculation of how many prototypes and what the plan was or might be to do with them is moot.

I have to stop with my recollection of what Elio or Elio reps said a year ago because it means nothing without the funding announcement. They didn't have the funding then and don't have it today. I may need a break until the funding is declared and in the bank in next months Tech Talk along with Paul Elio doing a money dance.

Agreed

 

[Kuda]

Paul tends to try and stick to numbers he's quoted, even if dates were highly elastic.
And too, once you've allocated to build 10, the extra 15 are not that much more money. But he will not build more than is needed.
So I suspect it will be exactly 25, unless not all of the tests/uses have been identified. Which isn't likely.

Now if the funding were suddenly approved, (and before the 3-4th quarter of this year), then 'wish lists' may get more attention and the number could well go up. JMHO.

Sometime ago Paul was quoted saying the P4 cost 500K to build.
I expect if he orders 25 units he might get a price break, Even if he
pays full boat that's 500K X 25 = $12,500,000. Not a lot in the
scheme of things........................

 

[Jim H]

Having vacillated back & forth I finally opted on the side of the 5 spd.
I figure if I don't like it &/or grow tired of the clutch pedal, or don't care
about autocrossing my Elio any more, etc., etc. I'll just trade it on the
new "TURBO" model w/auto when it comes out!!!

Love to hear the optimistic view of Turbo models in the future. Hell, I'm still just waiting for the basic model

 

[Kuda]

Love to hear the optimistic view of Turbo models in the future. Hell, I'm still just waiting for the basic model

2018 Elio Turbo: 168 HP w/156 ft lbs of Torque. 0-60 in 4.6 sec. top speed
of 187 mph. 37 mpg city 57 mpg hwy. Lloyd's will insure........................

 

[RUCRAYZE]

2018 Elio Turbo: 168 HP w/156 ft lbs of Torque. 0-60 in 4.6 sec. top speed
of 187 mph. 37 mpg city 57 mpg hwy. Loyd's will insure........................

"Loyd's" might insure it, but Lloyd's of London might not

 

[BADBOY]

I once drove a car into a train, does that count?

Did you live?

 

[Ty]

I got a cost estimate to retrofit my Elio to electric. Drive train, battery pack, and labor: $35K

While not a straight up conversion which would be impossible to justify with fuel costs, putting a wheel hub motor on that rear wheel would be easy.
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-wheel-hub-motor-concept-hybrid.html

I'd do that.

 

[Ty]

Ouch, that would be a rip!. Try these guys instead http://www.ev-blue.com/.
In fact once I have my Elio, I'll probably talk to them, (they are here in northern AZ last I looked) to encourage them to develop a lowcost kit for the Elio.

At 84 mpg and $5/gallon gas, 12,000 miles in an Elio will cost $714.28 ($0.06 per mile).. and that is more miles than average per year.
At 84 mpg and $2.50/gallon, it'd cost $357 to drive that Elio 20,000 ( $0.03 per mile)

The Elio will be so cheap to drive, most electric answers just won't make sense money wise. Even-blue costs $12,500 and can only save you $0.03 per mile which will only take a few Elio miles to pay for... about 416,666 miles which is 34 average years!!!

Maybe the $1,000 cost to add a rear hub motor which, in the Elio, makes sense would be a better option. The rear hub motor herehttp://phys.org/news/2012-07-wheel-hub-motor-concept-hybrid.html
Will put out about 100 horsepower which would give the Elio quite the boost. Plus, it only costs about $3,000. It'd be fun. And, it'd save you from wanting that turbo!

 

[Ty]

When the E-series vehicles are ready for test drive events is not up to the marketing team. The timing on the ride and drive events will instead depend on when the engineering team reaches their objectives. These vehicles are being built for testing so they belong to the engineering team until they are released to the marketing team for refurbishment and reuse as test drive vehicles. My guess is marketing team will not be completely left out however they will likely only have a single E-series vehicle, and/or possibly an upgraded P4, during most of the testing time period. This will likely be used primarily for media test drives and other related marketing efforts.

Another item to keep in mind is that about half the pre-production vehicles will be destroyed in crash testing so even if they begin with 25 test vehicles there will only be a dozen or so left over and it is likely the engineering team will keep several of those for testing, especially software development, right up until the first vehicles roll off the line in Shreveport. This means that even if they begin with 25 test vehicles there will likely be fewer than 10 vehicles, and possibly only a handful, for the marketing team to eventually use on the early test drive events. Even 2-3 vehicles is likely enough for events limited only to early reservation holders however I believe many people are expecting a huge test drive fleet of 18-25 vehicles to show up during these early test drive events which is not going to happen unless there are some major changes to the plan as we know it.

The majority of reservation holders will likely have a chance at ride and drive events before they make their decisions however EM knows that it is very likely that reservations holders whose vehicles will be produced in the first 2-3 months stand a good chance of not having this opportunity. This is why EM has not promised this would happen but instead set a more general goal for these event happening around the time of first delivery. The reality is that to offer these ride and drive events to reservation holders before even the first reservation holder needs to make their choice this means that a good portion of the road testing would have to be wrapped up over three months prior to the beginning of production and that is cutting it tight as the road test vehicles will need to be refurbished prior to test drives and we have been told that our orders are supposed to be placed about two months prior to delivery. We can all hope this happens, as I know we would all enjoy the opportunity, however I try and dispel this misconception as much as possible so people are realistic and understand the reality that this very well may not happen for most of us who currently have EM production 'spot in line' numbers.

Even producing 250 per day puts production at 1,250 per week 533/day and 2,666 is the number they'd be able to produce on a single shift running at the old 54 second speed on the line), two months of production will take them through the first 10,000 Reservations!