I agree this is unique and should be promoted. This is part of the many reasons so many of us are impressed with the Elio. Environmental and economy people are impressed with the milage and price. Performance people are impressed with how it is built. This will make a great platform to do different things with, and the price makes it affordable to do so. Few vehicles have so many diverse virtues.
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What Do We Know About The Elio Chassis?
- Thread starter Jeff Bowlsby
- Start date
RKing
Elio Addict
When you think about the cost of stamping dies for the panels of a unibody it adds up. The fixturing to weld the tube chassis will be a drop in the bucket compared to die design and fabrication. The robots really don't care and the chassis line they "inheriated " would have had some wire feed tooling already. They can sell most of the spot weld tooling for the rest ! Also modifications, like raising the roof line, would be so expensive as to be impossiable on Elio's funds (stamping die cost). Again, a very astute choice driven by sound engineering and "disign for production". Instead of "cars are unibody" thinking 
A big plus is the crashworthyness is more predictable with a tube chassis, I would think.
A big plus is the crashworthyness is more predictable with a tube chassis, I would think.BADBOY
Elio Addict
are there not already cars that have similar composite makeups to the Elio? Corvette, Camaro and some foreign makes, I believe.
The Elio body is the same type of composite as used in modern Corvettes, fiberglass reinforced SMC. This material is also widely used in this country as an alternative to ABS composite for bumper covers and various other parts. Overseas it is used as a full body covering throughout the world.
By the way the SMC is not just used in the Elio body but also for the floorpan as well.
Folks
Elio Addict
I've not seen any Elio stuff on this. So we're kinda stuck with your the indy looking illustration and at least it points to the right direction though the pipes you have here looks way too beefy to be accurate.
I really am juiced to see we're going steel tubing or something like it. Square tubing is not as strong as round tubing but I'll take either.
I have a trivia question. Where Was tubular steel first used as a vehicle construction material?
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RKing
Elio Addict
Goofyone has posted pics of the P4 "naked" , I would consider that to be very close to production intent. Maybe he can link it to this therar.. hint hint
The composite material would be much quieter than metal and less prone to carry vibrations through the car. I wonder if they will undercoat the Elio.
Not to beat the subject to death, but this is why I wondered if there is enough metal in the floor to trigger the traffic sensors in the pavement at traffic lights. You pointed out the composite material will form the floor pan and thus the bars will be the only metal in the floor.
Folks
Elio Addict
No, just trivia. I meant to say tubular steel. The answer is the bicycle. However WW I The Folker D VII was the first aircraft to use tubular steel in it's construction and is considered acceptable construction in light aircraft to this day. It's just a trivia thing to me because I like air craft.
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Goofyone has posted pics of the P4 "naked" , I would consider that to be very close to production intent. Maybe he can link it to this therar.. hint hint
'Naked' P4 rolling chassis here.
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It is my understanding that this is actually very close to what they intend to do on the production chassis however it is still missing some details and some refinement some of which can be seen when comparing it to the crash simulation images I included below.