Paul Elio Presentation And Questions

[Elio Amazed]

You did NOT mis-hear him. He thought (might still think) he would reach 250,000 reservations before production starts. He still might. Once the car is about to be produced and there are no more hurdles other than just getting started, people will start ordering. I think he meant that each Elio would be sold before it was produced. In other words, while manufacturing all the existing pre-sales, more will come in and there will be no Elio produced without having a buyer waiting on it.

I could be wrong there but remember, Paul spoke at St. Francis back in March of this year. I wonder if he's changed his pre-order estimates since then.

That's the way I'm understanding it. Meaning that there'll be 250,000 total pre-orders that will qualify as "reservations" made before and during the first year of production. PE and Jerome had been consistantly making statements that could have been taken to mean several different things. Recently EM has seemed to be more concerned about clarity of meaning in their statements. And that's a very good thing.

 

[John Painter]

I saw this today on You Tube and thought it was pretty good. It is an hour long but worth watching.

You know there's already a thread for this, though I totally agree it was a particularly good presentation information wise, though we did get to see how questionable a speech giver PE is.

 

[TCBronson]

That is still under debate, I believe. It seems you should not have to pay the delivery charge but some on here believe that everyone will pay it and you may just be subsidizing someone getting theirs from a big distance.

I know that if you buy a Corvette and take delivery at the plant in Bowling Green, KY you still have to pay for the shipping charge.

 

[JEBar]

I know that if you buy a Corvette and take delivery at the plant in Bowling Green, KY they still have to pay for the shipping charge.

that has been reported to be due to the contract with the transporters union .... it will be interesting to see how EM handles transportation and delivery of its trikes

 

[BADBOY]

That's the way I'm understanding it. Meaning that there'll be 250,000 total pre-orders that will qualify as "reservations" made before and during the first year of production. PE and Jerome had been consistantly making statements that could have been taken to mean several different things. Recently EM has seemed to be more concerned about clarity of meaning in their statements. And that's a very good thing.

The comment I heard was from March and not clarified 5 months later.

 

[RUCRAYZE]

the description of delivery fees, as I recall, was designed to "average out" the trucking costs, maybe there will be some small deviations otherwise The Guy in Seattle (hummm) would pay much more than some guy in Florida?? and truckers would choose only short hauls.
I also recall, that there would be a 4-6 week spread in picking and customizing the unit- you get an email asking specifics and weeks later you get notice it's ready.
two things remain unclear, test driving and financing, there might be all in folks who either require a test drive and need a loan (Yea I also remember the "Special" E gas charge card)- which too will probably work out to10% and late fees @22

 

[Elio Amazed]

The comment I heard was from March and not clarified 5 months later.

yep.

 

[AriLea]

About the reservations, it was noted that not all fleet sales are listed in the 45k up to now.

. . .

• There are several thousand reservations for fleet sales, that are not shown in the reservation public total of 44,556 currently; (some months ago on Facebook, Elio Motors said that "some" of the fleet sales do show in the reservation total, who knows how many)

EM has some feel for the interest from government and business. But lets look at some stats ourselves...

The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau (2007) counted 39,044 general purpose local governments, which includes 19,492 municipal governments, 16,519 township governments and 3,033 county governments.

If just half of those want just one Elio, that's 37,500 units to sell to government fleets. Elio Motors has some idea about the interest so far from government wanting/needing to save on their vehicle fleets. If all government entities average a desire for 7 each, that exceeds the first year of Elio production.

The new 2012 IFA Franchise Business Economic Outlook indicates that there were 735,571 franchised units in the US in 2011. A 1.9% growth is projected for 2012 which would bring the total to just under 750,000.

If just 1/3 of all the francizes in the US want an average of one Elio, that's the whole first year of production.

EMPLOYEES QNTY % OF
10,000+ 1,811 0.01%
5,000-9,999 1,707 0.01%
2,500-4,999 4,180 0.02%
1,000-2,499 7,158 0.04%
500-999 15,811 0.09%
250-499 37,034 0.20%
100-249 162,103 0.89%
50-99 297,156 1.63%
25-49 843,158 4.63%
10-24 1,339,184 7.36%
5-9 2,100,398 11.54%
2-4 7,580,324 41.64%
1 5,814,654 31.94%
18,204,679 100.00%

So 18million businesses minus the franchises, lets say 17million. If .015% of them just want one Elio on the average, that's the whole first year of Elio production.

I have no idea what the chances are for fleet sales, I only know EM has a whole division and VP dedicated to it. They seem to have good reason.

All business have trouble with employees who need a reliable car. If they set up a fleet deal and provided and deducted for vehicle payments, how cool would that be for prospective job hunters? Would you consider working for them?

 

[AriLea]

Ok, a follow up on just one franchise, Geek Squad. They have 24,000 employees. Some percentage drive to customer locations in fleet cars. They do not need to carry much, and quite often just the one employee. It's not a question of IF, but how many. They bought Smart Cars at first remember?
How many Elio's will they buy the first year? At least a few per location or region at least. There are perhaps one hundred US cites large enough to sport a Geek Squad. Mine has about 6 Geek-Squad locations, so let's say 600 across the US. I can easily see GS buying 2 Elios per location, that is maybe as much as 1200 Elios. But let's say they only supply 1 Elio per ten locations on the average, that's 120.

There is an independent family owned sandwich shop down the street from me with 5 employees. They want an Elio for deliveries. They will not put money down until the cars are being produced. If they could get a fleet version of the car they would.

 

[Coss]

When I was talking to the people from EM they told me "any purchase of 5 or more is considered a "fleet""