I appreciate your perspective. That's kind of how I view it too. Sharing your opinion about a potential production delay based on slow E progress and funding shortfalls is not raining on anybody's parade. Better than discussing color options and a dash.Even if Elio got the ATVM loan today, they still have to tool up the factory and then ramp up production. That would take at least a year. Assuming they've already done some tooling at the factory they might get a few elio's out the door by the end of the year. I'm a mechanical engineer and I've been involved with starting up new production lines. I don't see Elio doing much with the production line plans until AFTER all goes well with the E-series vehicles. Assuming they had access to all the cash they needed I'd be shocked if they started production less than 9 months after E-series testing. If the E-series testing reveals design flaws then you can tack on an additional 6-12 months to fix design flaws. Granted my experience is not in vehicle production but I don't think I would be that far off.
Not trying to rain on anyone's parade but just trying to provide some perspective. I'd be ecstatic to be proven wrong and bring my Elio home for Christmas but I'm not holding my breath. I'm hoping I actually get mine mid 2017 but I'm not optimistic about that date either.
Also, Gas-Powered Awesome is spot on in the above post. Obviously, some views differ on EM's ability to meet their stated production dates, but is in no way negative.