At this point, Elio are waiting for the US Securities and Exchange Commission to approve the paperwork related to their crowdfunding. If the Commission states that everything is in order with the documentation, the company can then start getting in touch with everyone to see if their intentions are still valid.
Because of the convoluted process involved, we don’t know how much of that $22+ million the company is going to see, but in the end, even if they’ve raised half of that, we hope that it would still give them a nice financial boost and allow them to move forward with their current plans.
We’ve also read reports that StartEngine, the company that handles the crowdfunding for Elio, have been putting in a lot of effort to ensure that transactions are actually legitimate. We don’t know what’s going on in the backend, but hopefully they really are taking care to verify everything as best as they are able to.
Some have been commenting that the outcome of this crowdfunding might also have some stronger implications for similar campaigns in the future, as it’s not often that we see a company turning to its potential future buyers to raise millions for a nonexistent product, and even though sites like Kickstarter have popularized this concept, the case with Elio is a bit different as they are selling actual shares. If this becomes a more popular concept, that certainly wouldn’t be bad.
This info about the trolls is 2 weeks old and they were removed from the numbers.
Elis is now at $28,412,310 from 7680 reservations.
As recently as 8/6 it was mentioned in a Forbes interview with Paul Elio and Ron Miller from StartEngine that it would be a few weeks before the Reg A+ paperwork would be filed with the SEC.
I don’t know at what point ‘Superman’ inflated the numbers but I know StartEngine has reduced the pledged amounts at least once in late July due to trolls trying to sabotage the system.
Additionally, your statistics are a bit dated. The pledged amounts passed $25 million before the end of July. As of today, 8/10, the figures are up over $28.4 million with close to 7700 interested parties.
I am with you; I hope that Elio Motors can find the funding to get their final prototypes build and tested. Once production starts I think the combination of their price point, financing, warranty, and expected owner costs will make for big potential niche market sales.
(Full disclosure: I do not work for Elio but I am a commuting driver, a reservation holder, and a potential Reg A+ investor)
Yes, the amounts being bandied about are only expressions of interest. But with a lot of the troll-work thrown in the slime pit where it belongs, Elio does stand at over $28 million in “interest.” From the SEC’s point of view, this makes a powerful demonstration that potential investors consider Elio a good enough bet to want to be in on the ground floor.
This whole exercise is energizing in a number of ways. It legitimizes the concept of Reg A+ funding; it has surfaced the problem of trolls wanting to poison anything they can reach, and so put future users of the system on guard; and, finally, it should at the very worst kick in well over $20 million to Elio Motors to get on with their program.
Elio is a risky investment, but ultimately may prove very profitable. Only time will tell — and injections of cash by this and other means.
Every high school student, college kid, dad in midlife crisis has the potential of purchasing the elio without messing finances up from their starts. I think this car is way over due. Not everyone. Can afford tesla at one hundred k