Well, it would be nice to be able to actually drive a car with the auto tranny before deciding on that option. As others have said, the Smartcar implementation is not good. I bought one in 2010 and owned it 6 months before I dumped it on someone else. Shifting was BAD. It would shift into 2nd gear in the middle of a left hand intersection turn and the delay was such that a car behind you would be right on your ass. Scary. That and the fuel economy wasn't very good at all for such a compromise of a car. I bought the new 2012 Focus in May of 2011 when they first came out, it has the double-clutch auto 6 speed that works just fine. I average 35mpg combined and at 60mph on flat ground I get 42mpg (has the louvers that close automatically in the grill area to improve economy). That's better than the Smart ever was. The auto in the Focus gets higher mileage than the manual. If the auto in the Elio gets more mpg and doesn't suffer from the similar issues as the Smart I'll probably go with it. But ultimately I'm treating this vehicle as an enclosed M/C so a manual would be fine (would NEVER own an auto M/C). One other thought, my 86 Chevy Sprint got 47mpg avg and about 53 on the highway. Later model years of the Geo metro never did as well for me, in the high 30's, even though they were FI. I've always whined about why someone can't bring back a Sprint-like vehicle when it had Prius-like economy... Conspiracy theory?
Really looking forward to the initial release of this bike-car
Elio Motors has discussed a series of events later this year or early next year where they will allow test drives. I hope they are able to do this as I know many people have questions about that AMT transmission as they do not have a very good reputation for around town driving but who knows maybe this generation of AMT is better than some of the previous generations.
Dual-clutch transmissions are very nice but of course the big issue for Elio is that DCT's are much more expensive than AMT's. The funny thing about DCT's is that they are now starting to become available in motorcycles and are facing the exact same response they had in cars at first. When they first became available in cars all the car guys said their is no way they would drive one as its basically a type of automatic transmission yet just a few years later all high end sports cars had to have them and next year there will even be a DCT in Corvettes and Camaros which are some of the most traditionally minded sports cars around. I expect to see this same kind of progression happen in motorcycles over time also as DCT's have a lot of performance advantages over manual transmissions.
The reason why a Chevy Sprint/Geo Metro type vehicle is not being built today is due to the ever increasing rules and regulations cars must adhere to. I believe this is a major reason why Elio Motors wants to build this vehicle officially as a motorcycle and not a car as this vehicle would be impossible to build at this ultra low price point if it were classified as a car.
