My Elio Alternate Project Is Underway.

[Mark BEX]

"One thing to look into is to include something for a rear receiver hitch."

I agree 100%. There's a ton of "nuts and bolts" that have to be worked out in the coming months... but I really hope provisions for a receiver hitch can be be included. I plan to do some traveling with my BEX and having a small, light weight luggage (bike) trailer would be ideal for my longer tours.
My fingers are crossed.....

There's a reason I haven't cut the right hand side main lower chassis rail short just yet ....

 

[Made in USA]

My question is simple: Is there much more work to be done on the chassis before you start putting the body on? Really looking forward to it.

 

[84mpg]

There's a reason I haven't cut the right hand side main lower chassis rail short just yet ....

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SWEET!!! You just made my day!!!

 

[RSchneider]

There's a reason I haven't cut the right hand side main lower chassis rail short just yet ....

View attachment 25679

Just run another frame rail across the back and then run it up to the one on the left side. If needed, make that bolt on as to allow for rear wheel service. Look at how a hitch works for a recent Jeep Wrangler. It's super simple and bolts to the existing frame rail in the vehicle.

 

[JEBar]

There's a reason I haven't cut the right hand side main lower chassis rail short just yet ....

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OUTSTANDING .... that sure makes our hope to tour in our BEX much more likely ...

 

[JohnJ]

I'm amazed how people keep comparing the Elio and BEX to the Vanderhall... and Slingshot for that matter. The Elio and BEX are intended to provide practical transportation at a low cost, whereas the Vanderhall and Slingshot are just expensive toys.

 

[Mark BEX]

and he has admitted there is some commercial interests seeking him out in this corner of the industry.

Yes, I am literally sitting around doing nothing on the car, but lots of background stuff, while I nervously await the outcome of my new visa.

Entirely my fault, my 10 year Passport expires in July, I plum forgot about that, and I need 6 months at least on my Passport to get my Work and Residents Visa. Because of Covid, there is a 2 month backlog of new Passport applications, and I only have 3 weeks left on my current Working and Residents Visa (you do the math ...).

Yesterday I got my Emergency Passport, good for 7 months, and right now as I type, my 2023 Employment Card is being done (proves you have employment), and when I get that, off to the Visa office to apply for my 2022/2023 Work and Residents Visa.

My point is, once I have my 2022/2023 work and residents visa, I will be on a plane direct to the manufacturing persons of interest.

 

[Mark BEX]

My question is simple: Is there much more work to be done on the chassis before you start putting the body on?

Not really, I am doing some work at home at the moment cleaning up the chassis files, some minor changes, and adding the various holes I have manually made to the cnc files.

However, I would point out that setting up in a company that has different setups such as tube bend radius, folding radius, tube dies, common tube sizes they might stock to use for their other builds, pivot bush size and type, etc, could see a complete revamp of the design to suit their parameters. So it would be exactly the same, but completely different :-)

I believe the Hyundai Accent doors are a good choice, as well as the Accent sides to start shaping from, so hard points and general chassis silhouette can not be changed by much.

 

[RSchneider]

I'm amazed how people keep comparing the Elio and BEX to the Vanderhall... and Slingshot for that matter. The Elio and BEX are intended to provide practical transportation at a low cost, whereas the Vanderhall and Slingshot are just expensive toys.

One company literally built and got their three wheeler on the road with NHTSA and EPA certification (which is not easy) in 6 years. Then they set out to form a dealer network for warranty and service along with parts. They did what no startup has ever done when it comes to three wheelers. Yes, it might be expensive and a weekend play toy, but they literally did something that even FUV couldn't accomplish (those are just cheaper play toys) in the timeframe. Elio's pie in the sky business plan was just that. If it was sustainable, then they would have had no problem getting to production. Yet they never did. So, maybe the people that compare them are wondering how a company that never asked for a penny from the \outside world, could accomplish this, while Elio was constantly shopping for funding.

Maybe, just maybe, the Elio plan was never going to work as it sounded too good to be true. Wanting something to work, is one thing, making it work is another. As for the BEX, we just have to wait and see. What I see is that we need to lower the bar a bit to get that three wheeler that we want at the price point that Elio somehow set which people believed because they wanted to believe.

 

[Rickb]

One company literally built and got their three wheeler on the road with NHTSA and EPA certification (which is not easy) in 6 years. Then they set out to form a dealer network for warranty and service along with parts. They did what no startup has ever done when it comes to three wheelers. Yes, it might be expensive and a weekend play toy, but they literally did something that even FUV couldn't accomplish (those are just cheaper play toys) in the timeframe. Elio's pie in the sky business plan was just that. If it was sustainable, then they would have had no problem getting to production. Yet they never did. So, maybe the people that compare them are wondering how a company that never asked for a penny from the \outside world, could accomplish this, while Elio was constantly shopping for funding.

Maybe, just maybe, the Elio plan was never going to work as it sounded too good to be true. Wanting something to work, is one thing, making it work is another. As for the BEX, we just have to wait and see. What I see is that we need to lower the bar a bit to get that three wheeler that we want at the price point that Elio somehow set which people believed because they wanted to believe.

Arcimoto’s mission statement, engineering, and design process for their SRK (steering wheel) turned FUV (handlebar steering) everyday commuter EV was much different than Vanderhall’s and likely different than BEX’s mission statement. Slow well thought out process. While tooling for scaled production that includes continued fabrication of their custom parts in-house, Arcimoto has developed 4 different models on the single FUV platform. Elio’s mission statement was summed up in the Elio Marketing Camapaign to include non-refundable deposits with no guarantee of delivery. Of, By, and For the believers. The difference - BEX is communicating personally/directly during his build process with his fan base audience and is open to our needs, wants, desires, and constructive criticism. Mark Frohnmeyer‘s R&D process was the same. He still communicates with members of the FUV Forum and cares about his current and future FUV and the expanded platform models customer base. Elio, no personal communication. The statement that BEX is communicating with a manufacturer of interest is ‘interesting’ Indeed.