84 MPG $6,800

FastEddieB said:
Hopes to begin production next year.

Seems an unrealistically low price point....
Click to expand...

Good point. Anybody remember the DeLorean? It was announced at an attractive price - which kept going up and up and up. The final price was outtasight. Good thing I didn't put down a deposit, because when I finally got to sit in one it didn't take long to decide that it would never do.

Dave
 
Dav8or said:
Remember- This price is made up. Nobody is going to buy this thing for this price. It is a swindle. Do not put a deposit on this thing or you will hate yourself later.

For comparison, the Can Am Spyder-

2013_Can-Am_Spyder_RT_Limited_426195_i0.jpg


This is a real vehicle made in North America that you can buy right now. Notice the price. This vehicle has way less content than what is being offered by the Elio site. Is BRP (Bombardier Recreational Products, maker of the Can Am) just too stupid to be able to efficiently manufacture things, or are they just ripping us off for a whopping $10,000 per vehicle?
Click to expand...

They might be making 10,000 more per vehicle then they need to be profitable. It is a funny little niche market with no competition. The Elio is up against the 12,000 dollar Nissan Versa. It'll take a 5,000 dollar incentive to give up two seats and a wheel. Maybe it isn't possible, but if they can get them out there @6,800 I think they will sell bucketloads.
 
ClimbnSink said:
They might be making 10,000 more per vehicle then they need to be profitable. It is a funny little niche market with no competition. The Elio is up against the 12,000 dollar Nissan Versa. It'll take a 5,000 dollar incentive to give up two seats and a wheel. Maybe it isn't possible, but if they can get them out there @6,800 I think they will sell bucketloads.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing the people with the reservation will get the $6800 tag. That's what my coupon says. Once they get to the dealer floor, it's gonna be a different tune. Market price may be anywhere from $7k up to maybe $11k. Anything much over $10k is gonna be a deal breaker I suspect.

OBTW, there is a note on my coupon that says 'refundable in event that the buyer is unhappy with the product at time off offering'. Of course, there is that blood from a stone problem likely.
 
Last edited:
bartmc said:
A small upstart lean efficient and driven company can produce products for less than a huge bureaucratic company of which Bombardier is. No hallways full of middle managers overseeing auditors who add nothing to the final product. I'm not saying I believe the price will stick, but I bet it can be built and sold for what they're claiming, until they have stockholders to answer to. Especially if they drop a Chinese built Honda knock off engine in there.
Click to expand...

Being cynical and jaded can cloud your judgement. There are precious few, to no examples of a "scrappy young Mom and Pop upstart" producing complex physical product at less cost than the established companies. For Elio to be palatable to the American buyer, it will require a level of fit and finish, materials, appointments and quality of construction to have any success at all. To do this, they will have to do as their own website states, enlist the help of bigger, established companies. They need engineering, components, tooling, production equipment, etc. All from coampanies that have... "hallways full of middle managers overseeing auditors who add nothing to the final product".

Since you ignored the part where they said on their site that they would be building a special engine here in the States and brought up China, I would say consider the lowly Yugo. It hit our shores in 1986 at an incredibly low price of $3990. This was a car made from obsolete engineering, tooling and R&D paid off decades ago, and by workers making about a $1 an hour. In adjusted today's dollars, the Yugo would be about $8400. When you consider the Wal Mart dream of just producing knock off copies of nice things at every day low prices, consider that when a prospective buyer sees this-

Elio-Motors.jpg


They instantly imagine this-

IMG_4826-1024x768.jpg


and this doesn't help-

china.jpg
 
Dav8or said:
Being cynical and jaded can cloud your judgement. There are precious few, to no examples of a "scrappy young Mom and Pop upstart" producing complex physical product at less cost than the established companies. For Elio to be palatable to the American buyer, it will require a level of fit and finish, materials, appointments and quality of construction to have any success at all. To do this, they will have to do as their own website states, enlist the help of bigger, established companies. They need engineering, components, tooling, production equipment, etc. All from coampanies that have... "hallways full of middle managers overseeing auditors who add nothing to the final product".

Since you ignored the part where they said on their site that they would be building a special engine here in the States and brought up China, I would say consider the lowly Yugo. It hit our shores in 1986 at an incredibly low price of $3990. This was a car made from obsolete engineering, tooling and R&D paid off decades ago, and by workers making about a $1 an hour. In adjusted today's dollars, the Yugo would be about $8400. When you consider the Wal Mart dream of just producing knock off copies of nice things at every day low prices, consider that when a prospective buyer sees this-



They instantly imagine this-


and this doesn't help-
Click to expand...

Vans Aircraft has 65 employees, for a single data point. There is no way Cessna could build an RV kit and sell it for what Vans does. See the SkyCatcher for an example of how well Cessna competed against those "scrappy young Mom and Pop upstart" LSA companies. I wouldn't call this a complex physical product. I could probably build one in my spare time in my back yard cobbled together machine shop.
 
Last edited:
bartmc said:
Vans Aircraft has 65 employees, for a single data point. There is no way Cessna could build an RV kit and sell it for what Vans does. See the SkyCatcher for an example of how well Cessna competed against those "scrappy young Mom and Pop upstart" LSA companies. I wouldn't call this a complex physical product. I could probably build one in my spare time in my back yard cobbled together machine shop.
Click to expand...

Except that experimental aircraft are held to a much lower safety and quality control standard than commercially available road worthy vehicles. No government crash testing, no emissions standards, no real fit and finish expectations, etc.
 
docmirror said:
'14(new) Insight: ~$20k, rated for 41 city, 44 hwy. So, almost triple the price, and about half the MPG. But - you do get another wheel in back. :yes:
Click to expand...

1976 Honda Civic 1200, held 5 teenagers (once it held 9 on a $2 per carload night at the drive in, but 8 of them were petit girls) got 50mpg being driven like a bat out of hell, could not be made to get stuck in the worst snow storm of the decade in St Louis. Would pull 2 skiers around Carondalet Park.
 
e.pie said:
Except that experimental aircraft are held to a much lower safety and quality control standard than commercially available road worthy vehicles. No government crash testing, no emissions standards, no real fit and finish expectations, etc.
Click to expand...
As a motorcycle it is exempt from a bunch of the crash testing although they are claiming it will meet standards. They are also playing both sides of the motorcycle coin claiming you won't need a helmet or a motorcycle dl...
 
Datadriver said:
website not working. No faith they can build something more complex than a website.:mad2:
Click to expand...

Decent websites cost in excess of 600 Million bucks these days.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Oh and the elio site is working fine for me.
 
Dav8or said:
Remember- This price is made up. Nobody is going to buy this thing for this price. It is a swindle. Do not put a deposit on this thing or you will hate yourself later.

For comparison, the Can Am Spyder-

2013_Can-Am_Spyder_RT_Limited_426195_i0.jpg


This is a real vehicle made in North America that you can buy right now. Notice the price. This vehicle has way less content than what is being offered by the Elio site. Is BRP (Bombardier Recreational Products, maker of the Can Am) just too stupid to be able to efficiently manufacture things, or are they just ripping us off for a whopping $10,000 per vehicle?
Click to expand...

Clearly Bombardier is comprised of evil capitalists ripping off the consuming public. :yikes:
 
e.pie said:
Except that experimental aircraft are held to a much lower safety and quality control standard than commercially available road worthy vehicles. No government crash testing, no emissions standards, no real fit and finish expectations, etc.
Click to expand...

This is a motorcycle -- no crash standards, which is a MASSIVE amount of money saved.

I'll believe it when I see it, knowing what motorcycles cost these days, but it could happen.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Honda was getting 50 mpg out of the small engined CRX in 1992, probably more room then an Insight. But who wins with cheap efficient cars...
Click to expand...
Yeah, and you can go back further than that. The 2013 Civic Hybrid has figures about the same as a 1983 Civic FE.

EDIT: Oops, I see Henning already called the early Civics!
 
Last edited:
ron22 said:
Been tried before and will this most likely fail just like they did.
Corbin Sparrow, Zap Xebra two I can think of off the top of my head. Granted they are electric.

Personally I like the Idea but it is not really practical. Great as a 2nd or 3rd vehicle.
How does mom bring the kids to the soccer game, girl scouts.
Click to expand...

The Sparrow was the first thing I though of. I had hopes for that too. But I disagree with people that say that it was tried and failed before, so it can't be done. I have always rebelled to that sentiment and would often try something just because of that. I succeeded sometimes too. This might fail and it might not. It may cost $6,800 or it may cost more. But I would love to have something like that (with A/C as this one says) as a second car for one person commutes to work and other places.

Heck, I might even buy one for each of my employees to drive to work and sell the lot across the street that I now have to use as employee parking. A dozen of these wouldn't take up too much of my current parking lot.
 
Piaggio trike scooters retail well north of $6K, and I just saw a Chinese knockoff selling for a similar price. Hard to believe someone could build a trike scooter with a roof for that.
 
I wonder what the current kit car/motorcycle market is? If fit and finish is going to drive the price of something like this up, sell it as bolt together kit. Cheap practical types can finish it with a rattle can paint job, other types can build spray booths and completely kill any price efficiency but get a pretty car and personal satisfaction. Obviously that cuts a huge market out, city dwellers that don't own tools or have garage space, but opens assembly business options. Of course there are probably rules that stop this from happening.
 
Just because I don't have any facts or pertinent information, that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion.:D

I think it is entirely possible to do this. It depends on the materials they use, the manufacturing techniques and the ROI they are counting on.

There was a news story about a new manufacturing facility opening up around here. They make molded plastic items for all sorts of industries including electronics and medical. They ship around the world. They have FOUR employees to run the machinery. A similar plant used to have hundreds of employees. Labor costs for them are nothing, even though all four make a great salary. (Two of them own the company).

With a good design, efficient manufacturing techniques, modern materials and really good employees, I think they could do it. From my experience, most companies lack most of those components. The owners of the others become millionaires and billionaires.

steingar said:
Piaggio trike scooters retail well north of $6K, and I just saw a Chinese knockoff selling for a similar price. Hard to believe someone could build a trike scooter with a roof for that.
Click to expand...
 
FastEddieB said:
Maybe, but looking at the components and features of that, its really not all that exorbitant - except in price.
Click to expand...

I suspect there is not a lot of free market competition in that niche. Yet.
 
I have personal experience in a niche market.

I've always had a "thing" for sidecars.

At a rally, I saw a beautiful rig, based on a 1998 BMW K1200RS. I asked the fellow to let me know if he ever decided to sell it. Got the call in 2007.

In any case, the fellow had over $40k invested in the build. I bought it for about half that.

11872168843_2c1f6f27c2_c.jpg


As another data point, I had visited the shop in NJ that did Armec sidecar conversions. Their "ALS" front end, by itself, was about $7k. All in, including the bike, could run $45k or more.

High Performance Sidecars are a very narrow niche, so its very hard to determine resale - hardly any go on sale, so when they do its very much a matter of supply and demand.

Anyway, its a hoot for when we want to fly low, and Jake loves being our mascot in parades!

7716611582_4a308fc271_c.jpg
 
Gorgeous.
And worth much more than $6,800; regardless of the actual cost to build it.
And nice dog too.
And the passenger on the back isn't bad either.
But how did that guy get in the picture?

FastEddieB said:
I have personal experience in a niche market.

I've always had a "thing" for sidecars.

At a rally, I saw a beautiful rig, based on a 1998 BMW K1200RS. I asked the fellow to let me know if he ever decided to sell it. Got the call in 2007.

In any case, the fellow had over $40k invested in the build. I bought it for about half that.

11872168843_2c1f6f27c2_c.jpg


As another data point, I had visited the shop in NJ that did Armec sidecar conversions. Their "ALS" front end, by itself, was about $7k. All in, including the bike, could run $45k or more.

High Performance Sidecars are a very narrow niche, so its very hard to determine resale - hardly any go on sale, so when they do its very much a matter of supply and demand.

Anyway, its a hoot for when we want to fly low, and Jake loves being our mascot in parades!

7716611582_4a308fc271_c.jpg
Click to expand...
 
I've toyed with the idea of a sidecar rig or a trike, but they seem to roll all the disadvantages of a motorcycle and car all into one.
 
steingar said:
I've toyed with the idea of a sidecar rig or a trike, but they seem to roll all the disadvantages of a motorcycle and car all into one.
Click to expand...

Trikes are not my cup of tea, but we stumbled upon a trike rally at Maggie Valley once - great bunch of people loving what they do. More power to them.

High performance sidecar rigs are a whole 'nother thing. I love leaning into turns as much as the next guy, and my little Buell is great for that. But a completely different skill set comes into play with a sidecar rig.

And don't sneeze at what a properly rigged and ridden sidecar rig can do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrcPmuR3zFI

I get the impression that for the solo rider, keeping up with that hack through Deal's Gap was a "non-trivial" challenge! :wink2:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top