What Is Elio Stock Trading For Today?

[RSchneider]

This is the biggest site of Elio optimism. Elio Facebook page banned most commenters and filters out almost all the comments of others. Not many believers left here anymore. If Elio Motors is still pretending to be viable, they will have to put in more effort.

They car caught in a catch 22 situation. Deleting comments leads to a FB page that looks dead. I suspect the latest posts will be deleted and thus anyone that checks in once in a while will wonder of the company is still on operation. For the ones that have a SIL that get deleted, they just give up and walk away. For a company that was so much into social media and being transparent, they sure have done a 180. You can't keep treating your faithful like that as they will lose faith and it's obvious that it's happening in large numbers. Even some of the hardcore Elio supporters are MIA. Paul could solve many problems by coming out of hiding but no amount of requesting that, seems to work.

 

[Made in USA]

They car caught in a catch 22 situation. Deleting comments leads to a FB page that looks dead. I suspect the latest posts will be deleted and thus anyone that checks in once in a while will wonder of the company is still on operation. For the ones that have a SIL that get deleted, they just give up and walk away. For a company that was so much into social media and being transparent, they sure have done a 180. You can't keep treating your faithful like that as they will lose faith and it's obvious that it's happening in large numbers. Even some of the hardcore Elio supporters are MIA. Paul could solve many problems by coming out of hiding but no amount of requesting that, seems to work.

What Paul may not see is that his lack of communication may prevent him from ever being trusted again. If he does get another job it will be for someone else, not his own company. Even his engineering company (ESG) will be effected. What have they done, recently, that was successful? Designed a three wheeled vehicle? One that never made it out of the prototype stage? I'm sure investors are lining up outside the door.

 

[RSchneider]

What Paul may not see is that his lack of communication may prevent him from ever being trusted again. If he does get another job it will be for someone else, not his own company. Even his engineering company (ESG) will be effected. What have they done, recently, that was successful? Designed a three wheeled vehicle? One that never made it out of the prototype stage? I'm sure investors are lining up outside the door.

Let's not forget about the grim reaper (Hari). Looking at his past, everything has failed he has touched since he left johnson Controlls.
Look at what he has done:

- ESG Engineering - Went from 45 full time engineers and then additional support staff to laying everyone off in 2009 then becoming a business run out of Pauls house. In essence a paper company today.
- V-Vehicle - Hari worked for them while at ESG. That went belly up after the ATVM loan was rejected
- Next Autoworks - Just V-Vehicle under a new name. No ATVM loan for them and thus they went went belly up
- Envira Systems - Battery company that ran into big trouble, pretty much became another paper company
- Elio Motors - He was in charge of at least ATVM loan application #2. Never went anywhere, company stopped communicating with everyone and is now operating out of Pauls house. Again another paper company
- Pambian (?) Systems - Some mineral company out of Canada that seems to have evaporated off the planet and on his resume.
- YoYo Car Sharing - Within two years it's out of business. Paul Elio was a consultant for them too.

So, this latest venture with an ex Yoyo and Elio Employee will certainly turn out to be another failure. It's a company that is web based, thus another paper company. He says he is a serial entrepreneur but looking at his track record I can see why he's not working for a regular company. I know I'd never hire someone with that many things which never made it to completion. It's like when he shows up, it's destined to fail. People can have bad luck but there's a point where luck has nothing to do with it.

 

[Watashiwah]

Maybe you are being ‘too kind,’ I agree it’s not absolutely clear that it’s just bad luck but still not necessarily bad business decisions: Hari has a stellar CV and education. There were investors all intertwined in those ’ventures,’ and Hari certainly pulled down big bucks. Just sayin....

You left out Hari’s new project——kapeesh.io. Check it out, but hide your checkbook.

If I remember correctly Connie, the old EM CFO, came with Hari from one of his early ventures, and Joel, who was in some official capacity at EM, is now with Hari at Kapeesh. Did Connie go to Canada?

 

[Samalross]

Maybe you are being ‘too kind,’ I agree it’s not absolutely clear that it’s just bad luck but still not necessarily bad business decisions: Hari has a stellar CV and education. There were investors all intertwined in those ’ventures,’ and Hari certainly pulled down big bucks. Just sayin....

You left out Hari’s new project——kapeesh.io. Check it out, but hide your checkbook.

I think he did quite well for himself on each venture, definitely no bad luck for him

 

[Made in USA]

The financials of ESG are private, so we don't know how the money they got from Elio Motors was spent. We do know it was a lot. So the "founders" of ESG all got paid, right? I wonder how much went in their pockets and how much was actually earned for actual work? Not saying this is the case, but if they simply skimmed the money into their own pockets then perhaps it is a form of embezzlement? As fiduciaries of Elio Motors, I see a conflict of interest and failure to do their fiduciary duties protecting the public shareholders.

 

[RSchneider]

The financials of ESG are private, so we don't know how the money they got from Elio Motors was spent. We do know it was a lot. So the "founders" of ESG all got paid, right? I wonder how much went in their pockets and how much was actually earned for actual work? Not saying this is the case, but if they simply skimmed the money into their own pockets then perhaps it is a form of embezzlement? As fiduciaries of Elio Motors, I see a conflict of interest and failure to do their fiduciary duties protecting the public shareholders.

I don't see it that way. This is how I see it. Elio had a $650M budget and raised about $110M. The budget for developing the car alone was $147M. For the $62M they have spent on R&D they produced a number of prototypes and engineering vehicles. The completed units ran and drove, plus they showed significant changes for each one produced, thus R&D was being done. In the end, how much does it really cost to develop a three wheeler that needs to be mass produced (up to 250K per year), cost less than anything on the market, have all of the comfort and safety of a car and give better mileage over anything on the planet? Unless you have an example of something similar, it's that Elio went into uncharted territory, thus it's impossible to determine the proper amount of money ESG should have got. To develop a cheap car for a traditional automaker costs a minimum of $1B, so if Elio has a budget of $147M, that's a bargain and honestly, not enough. So ESG could be looked at as doing this at a bargain. Even at a bargain, they couldn't even raise enough just to develop the vehicle.

ESG did do actual work and has physical items to show for it. If ESG was paid to make a roller chassis that did nothing back in 2009 and did nothing from there on out, then there would be a case. That didn't happen. It's that Elio just couldn't raise the proper amount of funding. Were some things done wrong? Absolutely. Every company makes mistakes and especially new ones with zero experience at doing this. Just because stockholders and reservation holders looked past this and used emotion to drive their investment, it's their own fault. Warning signs were there and the SEC filings were there since November 2015. It's that some people bet on the wrong horse. Obviously, Tesla was the horse to bet on.

 

[Watashiwah]

There is no one more in agreement than myself that everyone has the right to earn as much money as possible within responsible limits: This does not insulate one from tenets like unjust enrichment, fraud, manipulation, paybacks, inside trading, etc. that still hold sway and need to be thoroughly examined.

Paul received $ 250,000 / year from Elio Motors. One can only speculate what salary Paul and Hari drew from ESG Engineering, but it’s probably safe to assume a similar amount of money. Between ESG (which, IMHO, was the true ‘driver’ of the ‘business’ with, in this endeavor an idea of a three wheeled vehicle as the ‘end product’ the timing and substitution of these companies in the incorporation process bear this out). One can argue that the engineering services provided by ESG were haphazard and essentially worthless, in the end. One can also argue that internal initiatives such as pursuing a new and ‘improved’ engine and other endeavors produced nothing but the ability to ‘churn’ money between EM and ESG. Given the incredible lack of information, for years and the absence of accountability and the disappearance of corporate officers, particularly the CFO (and SEC submissions), compounded by failures to refund escrowed refunds, it is not unfair to request a forensic accounting.

By my estimate I believe Paul pocketed 6 to 8 million in this: let me be clear that he has every right to earn that, and more, but there are too many issues that need examination by a ‘finder of fact.’

In an edit:

There is this, an element of Fiduciary Duty:

“Additionally, a breach of fiduciary duty can be any behavior that is not in the best interest of the client; any action that solely benefits the fiduciary; or any failure on part of the fiduciary to be completely transparent with important information.”

 

[RSchneider]

This is where opinion vs facts come into play. Nobody has ever built or designed a three wheeler like what Elio planned on doing. Plus it was to meet specs that no three wheeler has ever done. How do you put a price on that? Honestly, it's a guesstimate. After that it's trial and error. So that becomes a high dollar proposition yet Elio was doing it for less than 15% of a traditional auto maker. I wouldn't call that excessive. Plus what is the going rate to do an Elio? Unless there's a number, then it can be anything.

Plus, Elio raised about $110M and only $62M went into the vehicle. So about 56% of the money went into it. What about the rest? It went to marketing, changing laws, getting an ATVM loan going, administrative costs, paying for the plant and equipment. Even if Paul paid himself $10M, Elio Motors would be in the same exact situation they are in today. It would have delayed the inevitable by about 4 months.

I look at it as Elio Motors needed about $750M just for R&D by doing it on the cheap. Another $500M to get the business running properly. Using the grassroots mantra where hard work and pulling all nighters is not realistic yet people do it all of the time. The success rate for that is low. typically the mom and pop businesses that turn into a major institution lucked out by having a rich dude stroke them a check in return for the profits. Plus that rich dude was standing over their shoulder every day making sure it'll happen. Paul is waiting for that rich dude as a mom and pop style major vehicle manufacturer doesn't work. Pat was to be the guy but we see how that all worked out. Maybe there will be another Pat. Until then, Elio motors is going to sit like it has since the end of 2016. If Paul wanted to scam people out of a bunch of money, he would have shut it down two years ago and disappeared.

 

[Made in USA]

This is where opinion vs facts come into play. Nobody has ever built or designed a three wheeler like what Elio planned on doing. Plus it was to meet specs that no three wheeler has ever done. How do you put a price on that? Honestly, it's a guesstimate. After that it's trial and error. So that becomes a high dollar proposition yet Elio was doing it for less than 15% of a traditional auto maker. I wouldn't call that excessive. Plus what is the going rate to do an Elio? Unless there's a number, then it can be anything.

Plus, Elio raised about $110M and only $62M went into the vehicle. So about 56% of the money went into it. What about the rest? It went to marketing, changing laws, getting an ATVM loan going, administrative costs, paying for the plant and equipment. Even if Paul paid himself $10M, Elio Motors would be in the same exact situation they are in today. It would have delayed the inevitable by about 4 months.

I look at it as Elio Motors needed about $750M just for R&D by doing it on the cheap. Another $500M to get the business running properly. Using the grassroots mantra where hard work and pulling all nighters is not realistic yet people do it all of the time. The success rate for that is low. typically the mom and pop businesses that turn into a major institution lucked out by having a rich dude stroke them a check in return for the profits. Plus that rich dude was standing over their shoulder every day making sure it'll happen. Paul is waiting for that rich dude as a mom and pop style major vehicle manufacturer doesn't work. Pat was to be the guy but we see how that all worked out. Maybe there will be another Pat. Until then, Elio motors is going to sit like it has since the end of 2016. If Paul wanted to scam people out of a bunch of money, he would have shut it down two years ago and disappeared.

While I somewhat agree, without seeing the books we don't know where the money went and for what. We may never know. So here is a question: Did Paul ever stop working on the Elio, as ESG, because there wasn't any money left? The answer to this is he must have stopped several years ago, or he lied about spending all his time on getting funding. Can't have both. We also don't know if he traded some of his stock to one of the other directors for additional funds. It's possible, but without SEC documents we don't know.

Another question about ESG: What did Hari earn and what did he do to earn it?