Grumpy Cat
Elio Addict
There only five or so $42,000 "test" vehicles reserved and produced.
Those were delivered to customers who were delighted to have the first SRKs.
There will be no $42,000 SRKs or FUVs.
Yeah, OK, here's the issue... How can you possibly suggest that having 65,000 reservations and NEVER producing a vehicle is more sustainable than fufilling 3,500 initial reservations and then ramping up from there? Almost everyone here has conjectured that Elio reservations would skyrocket once they're out there on the road. Why in the world would you think that would be any different for Arcimoto?
I'm not say it isn't an issue for Elio to have reservations but not producing the car. Having 65k reservation holders shows far more interest than 3k. Will Arcimoto be successful? Who knows, but it doesn't seem likely.
Arcimoto’s business model focused on in-house R&D not in-house marketing and selling reservations. The 3000 reservation units equates to $45,000,000 in sales revenue to be used to help advance their production plans and perhaps roll out an official marketing/advertising campaign. Also, keep in mind Arcimoto’s production target is 200 FUV’s per week/10,000 per year with one shift. A sustainable business can only be determined after a business is a business with a product to sell based on market acceptance.
The reaction I got from people on the streets during my test drive was my eye-opener on how well received this vehicle will be when it hits the streets in greater numbers. “WTF is that?” “Where can I get one?” Along with waves, thumbs up, screams and hollers. I was surprised by the overwhelming reaction. The real eye-opener was from my could care less about a three wheeler vehicle wife’s reaction during and after her test drive.......with the typical ear to ear grin, “We need to get 2 of these!”
NOTE: There is no comparing either Elio, Arcimoto, and Electra Meccanica to Harley, Spyder, or Slingshot......different motorcycles/different market demographics. I wish them all crazy success and would have preferred that EM followed a similar business model from the start small and scale playbook. It may have been $12-15K, but we may have been driving it by now.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/0...llion-to-build-fun-utility-vehicles-now-what/ has some good info and great comments.
If people like to poo-poo Elio having $455,000,000 in sales and not being able to get rolling (or at least that we can see due to limited knowledge), I find it hard to believe the Arcimoto will be able to last long term. Could I be wrong? Sure, but just looking at the numbers, it seems doubtful.