People are lazy. If you have ever seen someone cruising a parking lot for 10 minutes to avoid a 1 minute walk, you'd know that! Only a dedicated few will drive 200 miles or more to pick up a car and bring it home again. Elio is supposed to be a car for the masses, and traveling any substantial distance to pick up a car is just not something most people will do.
I know that for me, there are some things I'm willing to travel to get .... we drove well over 300 miles to pick up our Sportchassis .... we drove well over 200 miles just to see and sit in the P4, from all reports that's pretty common .... I have no way of knowing how many folks in Ohio who want an Elio will not buy due to having to go out of state to do so .... right now, if they want an Elio type vehicle, they have no other option