OK. Forget for a second that we trust Paul. Forget for a second that we all believe in this. Put on your troll-hat with me for a second.
If they cannot get the loan, and if they cannot get any more funding, they can either sell something for $7000 or go bankrupt. What's stopping them from going out and buying a $1000 moped, making a few modifications, then forcing us to buy it for $7000? I don't see anything in the 'contract' that says, you agree to give us $7000, and we agree to give you a vehicle that looks like this, and performs like this. None of that is spelled out on their end.
Ok. Now you may remove your hats.
GO ELIO!
You have a point there, sir. If you keep your hat on, maybe no one will notice it!
On the flip side... Say that in producing the first 8,000 vehicles, it becomes very obvious that there are problems... Let's say people are hating the constant squeaking, rattles, wind noise, and the arm rest that falls off... They send you the "your Elio is almost ready and it's time to make some decisions" email. Now, you have to either buy it for $7,000 or face possible consequences.
It is my guess that the Elio will be at least "good enough" to warrant the $7,000 price and that anyone who doesn't like it would have an easy enough time selling theirs at least before they are available for regular consumers. On the flip side, I would be willing to bet that Elio wouldn't mind some people NOT taking delivery of their vehicles so that they could start getting some of them out to stores so they can continue taking pre-orders right up until production catches up with demand... something I hope doesn't happen soon.