Elio Gauge Cluster - Lord Elgin? - Other Options?

[Rickb]

Since I'm a model of restraint, I will refrain from quoting John Ruskin (most famous art critic of the 19th century):

“There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey.”

Nor will I quote him again, when Ruskin says, "In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes."

I won't bother quoting Louis Sullivan, a very practical architect who said, "form should follow function."

I won't take the trouble to refer Mr. Elio to the works of Edwin Tufte of Yale, whose classic treatise on "the visual display of quantitative information" introduces the concept of "data ink," meaning, the amount of any display that is actually communicating information. It's a pity, because Mr. Tufte has it dead right -- the Elgin dash has a tiny percentage of data ink. It is bad design, in Mr. Tufte's terms.

So instead of using the more precise ideas of others I'll just use my own words: The Elgin dash is a personal design expression and is out of place as a functional element in a truly inspired, future-facing automobile. It is distracting, ugly, uninformative, quaint, inaccurate, hard to read, and wastes space.

In sum, I don't like it -- and for very good reasons both practical and aesthetic. If only Elio were in the mood to listen to all those of us who have plunked down money and say, with me, "scrap it."

Guess that does it for this topic, as far as I'm concerned.

Please forward this to Paul Elio's personal email. I would be curious to read his response.

 

[DanS]

unfortunately, this past weekend several of us were told at the tour event in Charlotte that the Elgin dash will be the only one installed by EM .... further they will not offer any other dash as an approved option .... folks who choose to replace an Elgin will have to do so at their own expense

Jim

Guess I will have to break out the hack saw then

 

[goofyone]

I can confirm that this is only an initial prototype and will change before production however the overall design is expected to be close to this.

Even if legally a CEL may not be required on the Elio because it is a motorcycle I am sure they will include one when they build a prototype intended for use on the road and in conjunction with the OBD-II system as you mentioned.

The entire gauge cluster is metric which will need to change for US sales. Specifically the speedometer numbers and marks will change quite a lot in the conversion from KPH to MPH. There was also some discussion about possibly making the speedo and tach numbers and corresponding window larger as well but I would not count on that. They are currently 1 CM tall.

We also know that there will be some buttons accessible to rotate the central multi-function display display through several screens which will include the standard odometer and trip meters and also some other vehicle information (possibly temps, time, gear selected, etc..) with specific mention of displaying a vehicle speed readout here as well.

 

[goofyone]

Guess I will have to break out the hack saw then

If you are so inclined it likely will not be very difficult to remove the tach and speedo themselves and replace them with whatever you wish within the same gauge cluster panel. This would likely be the least expensive way to do it and if done well would maintain a generally stock look.

 

[JEBar]

Guess I will have to break out the hack saw then

hopefully a screwdriver will suffice ..

Jim

 

[eddie66]

hopefully a screwdriver will suffice ..

Jim

You can tell how fast you're going with a screwdriver?? How's that work??

 

[BADBOY]

Sure, lick the screwdriver, hold out the window then count how many seconds until it dries. Seconds x 1000 divided by 1000 added to 1000 then subtracted by 1000 = numbers of seconds for screw driver to dry. Of course that is using a flat head screwdriver, not certain of the formula for a hex or phillips head.

 

[Jim H]

This weekend I even had the chance to discuss how he deals with what we are taking about and after several decades in sales he simply understands he won't sell the car to everyone, it is impossible to avoid some land mines along the way, and he can't please everyone all the time so he simply must remain positive and work through any issues.
.

It's not about pleasing everyone. Over 70% of those on the forum do NOT like the Elgin dash. I would think good sales would be doing the things that please the most of your customers. The Elgin dash does not do that.

 

[zelio]

It's not about pleasing everyone. Over 70% of those on the forum do NOT like the Elgin dash. I would think good sales would be doing the things that please the most of your customers. The Elgin dash does not do that.

98% have never seen it in person. Z

 

[BADBOY]

It's not about pleasing everyone. Over 70% of those on the forum do NOT like the Elgin dash. I would think good sales would be doing the things that please the most of your customers. The Elgin dash does not do that.

I don't think this dash is about pleasing customer but finding enough off the shelf parts to please customer with final price. Some will pay more for a "nicer" dash as others will for other options like $2,000 'puter. Many will not.