Oct. 23rd 2015 Scottsdale Pep Boys Event

[slinches]

Another event was added to the tour schedule at a Pep Boys in Scottsdale, AZ.

I'll probably go to this one rather than the one in Chandler on Sat. & Sun.

 

[AriLea]

I'll be there..
My selfie; (the little guy is now almost my height)
http://www.3wheelers.com/einterview11.html

 

[LillyMayPatterson #1685 & #5648]

Arak Leatham

So the new plant was a old GM facility. Was hummer the primary product out of there?

Branden Carey

No there were a number of others too. We got a lot of the automation equipment in the deal as well. You know, we actually hired the plant manager that was there before. Currently we are building 25 pre-production prototypes there.

Typical slip of the tongue here. The trolls will jump all over it. Great interview, great Job. Thanks Ari.

 

[Husker1]

Here is a list of questions from the LA auto show thread that maybe you guys can help us out with. P5 specific pics and measurements will have to wait but maybe you can knock out some of the questions ahead of time.

Update 10/14
​

Questions to ask
1) Does the P5 come with production sound proofing?
2) Does it have OBD-II capabilities and are the limited by EM? If so how?
3) What is the current state of the turbo? Is it in the works? How far along is it?
4) Now knowing that they will use PPC coloring can they give the color specs for any of the colors? (Thank you TY for this knowledge)
5) What are the plans for yellow? Come on there has to be some, you can't upset that many people.
(Apparently, yes they can. No Yellow per TY )
6) When will the options list for the Elio be listed? Possible date? (Could answer a lot of customization questions)
7) What are the standard options that are confirmed?
8) Will the owners' manual be physical or PDF? When might we get a sneak peek online?
9) Numbers heard are 19,000 in 90 days. Is that correct? Is that calendar or working days?
10) Are you seeing more new people or established fans of the Elio at the events you are attending?
11) When will the vehicle for handsome pre-order holder #11492 be ready? (Don't worry these numbers aren't indicative of asking sequence Badboy)
12) If there is no belly pan on the P5, will there be an option for it?
13) Will the nose of the vehicle have sensors or body matched impact resistant materials?

Pictures requested
1) Front suspension : how it comes out of the body panel, what the covering looks like
2) Exhaust port : Location (probably get an undershot for clearance if possible too)
3) Interior : With a tape measure for dimensions if possible
4) Dash : specific without Skyz system if possible (no tape measure)
5) Side mirrors : size and are they manual or power

Measurements
1) Height to bottom of license plate both laden and unladen
2) From seat to ceiling in backseat
3) Overall width of front of vehicle (specific to parking between 2 poles, not wheel width)
4) Trunk : Size dimensions, Width of opening
5) Ground clearance : Where is the low point on the vehicle?

General observation
1) Is there a gas cap or not (as Corvette fill spot) (No Gas cap per TY post #92... will check anyway since new model)
2) Are there 2 armrests? Where are they located... part of the seat... part of the door panel... combination of both?
3) Are the turn/ interior/ side marker/ tail(brake) lights incandescent or LED?

Sorry it has taken so long this week. Kids sure do keep you busy but boy are they worth it. Please keep the inquisition coming. The more we come up with the more we may be able to get answered.

 

[Ian442]

I just had this image of karnaj rolling up to the display booth at the show and unfurling a question list that rolled down onto the floor like a scroll .

 

[Jeff Porter]

I just had this image of karnaj rolling up to the display booth at the show and unfurling a question list that rolled down onto the floor like a scroll .

The paper hits the floor with a *thud*! Tour folks look at him with a "you gotta be kidding me" look. lol

 

[AriLea]

I have some disappointing news, well to me anyway. I'd been pulling 13 hour night shifts for almost a week, starting last Friday. Not really good to do to a 62 year-old man. But you never want to pull the 'Age-Card' out for your employer.
And as I should have expected, I was sick my first day off from that schedule(yesterday). Was hoping to be well enough to go to Pep-Boys today, I even came to work on regular schedule today. But I think now I don't have the energy and need to rest. I'm going home early and hope I feel better for tomorrow.

This is the first time in 7 years my company has needed this from us. Hopefully it will be the last.

 

[Rob Croson]

Hope you feel better soon!

 

[AriLea]

Him I'm back, and at least bit better anyway. I felt good enough today to stop at the mall and say hello. They will be there 2 hours more at this point. Unbelievable but three of them remember me from the other times I've shown up. In fact it was more attention than I'm used to getting from anyone. They do seem to view us (Elio Owners and enthusiasts) pretty much like family. In fact Jerome mentioned he misses Zelio. Pretty much he does read these forums when he has the chance. At lease one other ElioOwner member showed up, and we definitely had lively conversation with Jerome. Hopefully he'll chime in here with his questions as well.

I had a 'print fail' on the way over, my printer at home ran out of paper (or toner or?) So I thought I'd get the questions we had posted here printed then ask that to Jerome. But the Office Max would not do my 'print' until 2pm tomorrow, so that was an unexpected fiasco.

In a way I'm glad I didn't have a formal list to cage the conversation, it allowed the exchange to ramble into areas we may never have thought of. But I did muster up a couple of formal questions, even while feeling a bit under the weather, I'll 'convert' his answers to written form below;

>------------------------------------
Will the P5 be at the LA show?> Yes, that's the intension. We except it to be there. The p3 has been doing other presentation duties for business and government etc. When we get the P5, the P4 will move to those secondary exposures.

Has the A+ program enabled other funding options?> YES, it has, very much so, money attracts money. At some point there will be an IPO, it will also have energized that.

So you don't need the AVTM lone to make this happen?> No, we do still count on that, but all this other investment funding does change how we manage that money, for what and when.

Will EM be trying to get all reservations before actual production?> We aren't doing these shows anymore for the reservations. It's all well and good, but in some ways we angle towards flexibility for who the first cars go to. For example we have tons of business interest we'd like to support, but their requirements vary considerably. For some the delivery has to be under a time limit and if all reservations were taken we couldn't support that. There are any number of commitments business requires that being just one of them. Government interest is also strong but requirements there are even more rigid. Government probably can't be addressed until actual production starts. Some requirements are that one year must already have been produced. In any case, the reservations have to be respected, so if business or government suddenly produces orders they will have to be fulfilled in the regular line-up of reservations.
The actual propose for the showings at this point are public education. I agree with the idea that we no longer have to prove there is plenty of customer interest. Public awareness and interest is what the P4 helps us with at this point.

Are you adding Yellow to the color catalog?> We are limited to 7 colors. Depending on the interest we may well change out any of them to whatever our customers want. But only 7. Blue for example, it's been considered to go with a lighter blue, more like the p5 illustrations.

Is the P5 final tires going to be 135's?> Yes, but the tires we have going on to the P5 aren't the final exact ones, so both the exact tire and the width of the wheel cover will be changed. It will definitely be more narrow than the P4 covers and tires, and possibly more narrow than what the P5 will have initially. The tire manufacturer is committed to making this new tire, but in turn they do require completion of various milestones before they will implement the tooling and facilities for doing it. In the meantime we've a suitable one we can use. It is a 135.

How is the SEC approval going? I was hoping Paul got a response on Friday, He didn't. Informally we've been hearing positive things over the whole program. In fact the feds ramped up a whole team to evaluate and process just our submission since the beginning. They have pored over everything. The results we got from that was used for the submission update. We don't really know if it will be days or weeks, but Monday wouldn't surprise us at all.
>----------------------------------
Conversational fragments,
Paul's grandchild died at some point, I didn't quite sort out the details, but it was sad, and a long time coming. Started as a result of an auto accident while the child was in the womb, up until the conclusion 7 years later. That did affect me quite a bit, as my grandson just tested positive on a rare cancer. All very sad stuff. -Segway to this-
But Paul had an auto accident 2 days ago, but he says he is all OK 100%. Still the teams keeps an eye on him since back problems can pop up later. But he seems fine.
Jerome thinks highly of LillyMay, cudo's Lil !!

My body pretty well ran out of juice, so I had to take my leave, 4 hours was about all I had to give for today.

 

[JEBar]

outstanding ... thanks for the report .... good to hear the P5 is still on track