Sondors Electric Car

[RSchneider]

Big difference between Elio and Sondors. Just compare the time spent and money! All reservations for Sondors are fully refundable. Nothing to lose but time, and I hope that we have plenty! I might get my FUV shortly after yours anyway. This fall is fine with me!

Put it in perspective. Earliest I can remember, Elio had the green prototype all out and running around in 2010. Before that it was a concept or a non skinned prototype. So, just put Sondors at where Elio was in 2010. From there, we can watch how it outperforms, does the same or fails in the Elio timeline. If Sondors meets the Elio timeline (right now, 3rd quarter 2019), then nobody will have a Sondors until the 3rd quarter of 2027.

 

[Rickb]

Put it in perspective. Earliest I can remember, Elio had the green prototype all out and running around in 2010. Before that it was a concept or a non skinned prototype. So, just put Sondors at where Elio was in 2010. From there, we can watch how it outperforms, does the same or fails in the Elio timeline. If Sondors meets the Elio timeline (right now, 3rd quarter 2019), then nobody will have a Sondors until the 3rd quarter of 2027.

No comparison. I followed the Say Hello to Elio marketing campaign from day one. Not even close to all out and running or comparible to what Sondors has done with a cool million dollar fit and finished show car. The Elio P5, which many thought was going to be the locked in specs engineering prototype was shoddy on fit and finish and no IAV engine.

 

[Elio Amazed]

Hey Rick... Can you believe the people who only put down reservations on an SRK in 2016...
And are getting all kinds of impatient even in light of the progress being made with the vehicles and factory?
I thought you might be able to appreciate the irony and humor in that.

 

[RUCRAYZE]

One of the best promotions that was to help and then the fender falling off in NYC :-(

 

[W. WIllie]

IIRR that design has been changed.(The fender mount)

 

[RSchneider]

No comparison. I followed the Say Hello to Elio marketing campaign from day one. Not even close to all out and running or comparible to what Sondors has done with a cool million dollar fit and finished show car. The Elio P5, which many thought was going to be the locked in specs engineering prototype was shoddy on fit and finish and no IAV engine.
View attachment 22346

Actually I looked it up and October 2009 was when Elio Motors has the first archive and the green one is there. It's like the Sondors where is was for show. We all found out the Sondors is a show car and not close to anything production (i.e. can only go 20 mph, everything inside is just a facade). The green Elio was the same. It ran and moved around but that was about it (just like the Sondors). I put both of them as the same period of the timeline and progress as Elio. If you want to just act like the Sondors is ready to go, go ahead but they have a long way to go to get to production ready and selling thousands of these to the general public.

With that, the Sondors to hit the Elio timeline, it'll come out in 2028. Elio was to come out in in mid 2014. So that means, if Sondors comes out in 2023, then they will hit the second proposed Elio timeline (first one was 2012)

In the end, I think like with every trike out there, it will be a niche market and not the production numbers like Elio thinks they are going to sell. Even Elio will have a difficult educating the general public that a tiny two seater three wheeler is the way to go. I look at every one of these trike companies as who can get their niche market product to market in a reasonable amount of time. Only one that has, is Polaris.

 

[Doug McDow]

According to Rick’s timeline for Sondors. I should have 5 years of driving on the SRK. It will be time to trade for the Sondors!

 

[Elio Amazed]

It's like the Sondors where is was for show. We all found out the Sondors is a show car and not close to anything production (i.e. can only go 20 mph, everything inside is just a facade).

To be fair RS, Sondors was up front from the beginning about the first prototype being nothing more than a show car.
"We found out" sounds like a bit of a spin on that. Sondors laid his general plan out there for all to see in the very beginning.
One of the reviewers stated that the 20mph limitation was because it wasn't road legal. But that reviewer was wrong about other things, so...
Sondors stated that the vehicle was governed. I'm not sure if not being road legal has anything to do with the off-road set speed or not.
I understand your skeptical and possible negative outlook due to the track records of the rest.
But I personally think we may be surprised by these people.

5007 reservations in 24 hours is nothing to poo-poo about even if they are only $100 refundables.
That is, except for the $3.30 processing fee some people are concerned about.

 

[Doug McDow]

To be fair RS, Sondors was up front from the beginning about the first prototype being nothing more than a show car.
"We found out" sounds like a bit of a spin on that. Sondors laid his general plan out there for all to see in the very beginning.
One of the reviewers stated that the 20mph limitation was because it wasn't road legal. But that reviewer was wrong about other things, so...
Sondors stated that the vehicle was governed. I'm not sure if not being road legal has anything to do with the off-road set speed or not.
I understand your skeptical and possible negative outlook due to the track records of the rest.
But I personally think we may be surprised by these people.

5007 reservations is nothing to poo-poo about even if they are only $100 refundables.
That is, except for the $3.30 processing fee some people are concerned about.

Double like,Like. No make that a triple!

 

[RSchneider]

I'm not being negative, just realistic. This reminds me of a talk I went to at a conference called, “Ethics and Prototyping”. In a nutshell, years ago, it was to prove the concept, meet the specifications and then work on attractive packaging. That's what legit companies still do today. With all of the advances of 3D modeling with surfacing and complex curvature, we now make an attractive package, write up a spec sheet and then go to work on making those specs a reality. Elio, Solo, SRK and Sondors all fit the bill for that. They gain public interest in the form of reservations or investment with a product that looks production ready and then it's advertised heavily through social media. For many that are not in new product R&D and manufacturing, the product shown is 90% complete. Reality is, it's not even 50% complete.

This is where the hard work begins. Thinking that building a one off prototype equates to close enough to production ready, was doable 50 years ago. As of today, not the case. SRK and Solo seemed to get the cool looking prototypes out there but they all got a dose of reality when it came to getting them out in the hands of the public. We might celebrate that Solo and SRK both got their cars into production but that's not what the real world calls production. When SRK and Solo have full time assembly lines running and they hit their numbers, that's production. Think about it, Tesla is getting dragged over the coals because they are not hitting production targets. In reality, they are mustering their way right now to get the product out the door.

I know Sondors did an e-Bike but again, that was easy because he went to the land where they make 99.9% of every bike on the planet for the last 30 years. Plus, if you have ever gone to China over the last 5 years, that Sondors bike was already out on the road, it just looked different because the Chinese use a bike for transportation and the government is going all electric anyway. I have an app that I can use a bike for free in China and there are even electric ones to use also. Many days, it's easier to just go get a bike, use the app to unlock it and ride 5-10 miles on an e-bike as opposed to other methods. Plus, Sondors is drop shipping the thing from China, thus it's not like he needs anything more than a computer today to process all of that. Engineering a bike is super easy as for what they are selling was done years ago. Here's the difference, a complete car is much different as opposed to a car. An electric car is China is much different than anything we'd buy here in America (except for the 1-20 people that like quirky things).