Bricklen 3ev?

[BigWarpGuy]

Electrive has an article on the Malcolm Bricklin 3EV. The article is dated February 1, 2018.

The vehicle they show is similar to the Zap three wheel vehicle. I hope he is successful in this venture. It indicates the vehicle could be produced in 2019. I hope to see it on the roads in 2019.

I think it is really cool looking.

Forbes.

AutoWeek.

VVCars. Visionary Vehicles.

Other Elio Owners Thread.

 

[wizard of ahs]

Does it list for $7450

 

[BigWarpGuy]

It would be neat if it did. Perhaps like the Elio selling for less than $10,000.00?

 

[Rickb]

Cool and stylish concept! However, I no longer believe in concepts coming to production until there is an opportunity to test drive a validated vehicle during scheduled road tour test drive events and physically or video touring their manufacturing plant. Beyond that it’s a new startup ‘marketing’ business looking for funds they may use for actual R&D or simply to fund the BOD high salaries and additional marketing. Vehicle startups responsible for my new outlook: Venture Vehicles/Persu, Lit Motors, Elio Motors, and SONDORs to name a few.

The three wheeler vehicle startups that meet the startup to production criteria is Arcimoto and Electra Meccanica.

 

[RUCRAYZE]

agreed, so do we know what separates those with concepts to those who get to production?? only money?,

 

[Maurtis]

Looks like they plan to MSRP the 3EV at $25,000. According to older articles he has been kicking this idea around for at least 5 years but it is still just a computer rendering in need of funding. I read about a couple different funding possibilities, one being having prospective dealerships paying $2 million each but they have to sell the car AND art.

 

[Rickb]

agreed, so do we know what separates those with concepts to those who get to production?? only money?,

We know it’s not “only money”, since some concepts get to production with far less money than those that have turned to vaporware.

The key for a startup vehicle company is to have a mission beyond getting rich, a team of dedicated people with a variety of skill sets, and a viable market changer
fun utility vehicle that investors can drive and believe in to keep the cash flowing until the start of retail deliveries.

 

[Ty]

We know it’s not “only money”, since some concepts get to production with far less money than those that have turned to vaporware.

That's quite true. Others have a lot of money and become vaporware.... Hello, Faraday Motors, I'm talking to you.

I think that "reach" is a common problem. It's easy enough to make one car and sell it and then make another car and sell it and then make another car and sell it... you get the idea. The problem is scale. You can make a large profit on just building a few cars a year but you'll never be able to make a ton of money in the long haul... Lamborghini comes to mind. On the other side of that argument, you CAN also make a lot of cheap cars and still flop. Anyone ever own a Yugo? (Well, bombing the factory didn't help them at all)

So, you have two companies building three wheelers. Two thought processes come from the fans:
"Why don't they just build some to get them out there and then ramp up production?"
or
"They should wait to get all the production pieces in place and then build them from the actual plant and assembly line so they can keep the price down and build a bunch."

Well, it's hard to ramp up from a hand-build style of manufacturing. You can't just build a couple hundred and bank the profit and go out and buy an already functioning plant ready to go. And, you can't buy a piece of equipment here and a piece of equipment there and have any hope of ever producing more than a few per year. No, you need to start with a production line that can be ramped up to meet demand. That's what Elio is doing and has been doing through the years -- ensuring the pieces are in place so that when they CAN start producing, there will be no need to have ridiculously high prices in the beginning AND they can easily ramp up to meet demand.

The ONLY downside of Elio's path (other than those of us who want our cars NOW) is that they can reach too far and not ever reach production. There's always the possibility that too much money/time will be spent getting TO production that there won't be money to actually produce. Hopefully, Elio will take what they have and start producing. They'll need money to get things moving but hopefully, it won't be as expensive to get started. They have a design, they have a factory, they have an engine supplier, they have parts suppliers, etc... They just need to get to Shreveport, sort out the line, and start producing the things.

Let's go Elio!!!

 

[Rickb]

If it’s easy enough to make one car, and I agree it is with the right Team Members and $2-3 Million, EM should have been able to build and deliver one autocycle to a paying customer during a decade of marketing.

 

[Ty]

If it’s easy enough to make one car, and I agree it is with the right Team Members and $2-3 Million, EM should have been able to build and deliver one autocycle to a paying customer during a decade of marketing.

... but why would they? The amount of profit on a single hand-made car that is NOT the final production version would amount to crap. AND, that small amount of money would not do much to get them to full-rate production. ALSO, those hand built cars take time to build, ship, and warranty. How many hand built cars would it take to earn enough profit to start full-rate production? To make $100,000,000 profit, you'd have to make $1,000 profit on each of 100,000 cars OR $100,000 profit on 1,000 cars. Hand building the cars in any kind of quantity is impossible unless you have a "final" design. You could make a similar car by hand to fund a different car's full-rate production but that's something totally different. Hand building, say, 10 cars a week would be a lot... AND, it would take you 2 years to make 1,000 of them.

Paul is making sure that the design of the car can be duplicated inexpensively enough to generate a profit at a low price point while, at the same time, ensuring that the car is reliable enough to not sink the company with warranty issues. It's a tough balance. It's possible they'll get a "final version" pretty soon and be able to slowly build a few in Shreveport on a semi-functional assembly line. (paint booths not set up for the Elio, many automated processes not programmed to work on the Elio, etc.) I hope they lock down the design soon. Perhaps they'll be able to order parts in small batches at prices low enough given the small volume to get things moving till they can hire on enough people to really start building at speed. (And, of course, get the parts rolling in)