Soft payment term
The Elio three-wheel vehicle will be retailed for $6,800 when it is rolled out in 2016 but even though a single unit has yet to come out of its assembly line, the company is planning to make owning an Elio trike extra affordable.
Elio Motors would be devising a promo called ‘Let Your Gas Savings Make Your Payment’ where consumers who shall buy an Elio, will get to have a special credit card in their pocket.
Motorists can use the card every time they gas up at the pump. So if the person’s gas costs $10, then his total cost to Elio would be $30. The extra $20 is applied to the consumer’s loan or amortization payment.
Elio explained that as long as they drive into the dealership with something that was 27 mpg or less, their monthly fuel consumption will go down. Doing the math, three times 27 equals 81 but the three-wheel vehicle has a rated fuel consumption rating of 84 mpg.
Paul Elio is breaking every rule of the high tech start-up game by not producing what he can right now. He’s obsessed with making the car perfect instead of getting the first cars off the line. The company is sitting on over 30,000 pre-orders. If that’s not reason enough to get into production nothing will ever be enough. Henry Ford didn’t have that much pre-launch demand when he started the Ford Motor Company. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! Just Dot-it!
I remember another story of a perfectionist who kept tinkering with his designs to the point that investors became disenchanted with the product and walked away with their money. Let us hope that the Elio is not the next Dymaxion House, or Dymaxion car.
With $1000 already on the line personally, I would be more than a bit disappointed to see Paul become the next Buckminster Fuller. One more delay in production, and I may end up auctioning off my “spot in line.”
–BEWARE– Elio Motors has been taking ‘RESERVATIONS’ for 2 ½ years, but is still short $230 MILLION needed to reach ‘production’.
In fact, their $100 – $1,000 reservations DO NOT guarantee that you will ever get a vehicle; Elio Motors says: “ we are under no obligation to supply you with a vehicle.“
– And when asked, they refuse to provide which ‘reputable financial institution’ is responsible for their “Refundable” escrow account.
– Even with the over “$17 million collected for “reservations”, they have NOT BUILT nor TESTED one complete Pre-Production Prototype with operable systems to ‘validate their claims’ of fuel economy, or safety!” …. since 2008.
– If you ask any ‘difficult’ questions, or express ‘discontent’ on their FaceBook page, it is [DELETED], and you are “BLOCKED”! Interesting ‘concept’; but NO WAY they will be in production and on the road, by Mid-2016, as they ‘claim’. – Their ‘Production Date’ has already ‘slipped’ from Jun/Jul 2014 → 1st Qtr 2015 → 3rd Qtr 2015 → to First ½ 2016!
– They have NOT demonstrated their “84mpg” and do not guarantee their ‘selling price’ of $6,800. They have never ‘demonstrated “at least 75mpg” to QUALIFY for the ATVM LOAN. They are ‘fleecing’ our citizens.!
Elio hasn’t met ONE self imposed deadline since finishing the orange mule in 2012. They outsourced everything such as design, never seen, for the “20 to 25” preproduction prototypes, never seen, never built. Despite claiming the vehicle would be made of mostly off the shelf parts, they outsourced a new 900cc 3cyl. engine from IAV, and we have seen one video, 14 months late, of some 3 cylinder engine on a dyno, results, surprise, unreported. The only part of Elio Motors actually working is the eternal Malls of America tour, where they drag the orange mule around (with a 20 year old Geo Metro motor) and continue to collect between $100-$1000 per pop for “a place in line.” They have pushed back start of production dates dozens of times. What do you call a company which sells futures for a product which never materializes?
I think Paul needs to stop prostrating to big investors, and let the everyday working slob invest with 10-20-50k. It will be them who will make and be buying this vehicle, why not them who benefit from the success and not a handful of hedge funds?
Claiming environmental impact and dependency on oil, yet producing a vehicle which is not FlexFuel compatible so it can use the widely available E85? I don’t think so.