I meant that there is a difference between "engineered for" and "will receive" a 5 star crash test rating. People keep assuming that Paul has to crash a whole bunch of these to keep his word. All they say is that it will be engineered so that it COULD receive the rating if it were to be tested... that's all. People want to stretch out the production timeline for "6 months to a year" of testing when not only is that not necessary, it isn't probable either. Testing probably won't be done by a government agency. There aren't even standards for the autocycle or rather, motorcycle as the federal government has it classified.
This is how I believe the crash test rating will play out. Months or even years before the NHTSA gets around to crash testing vehicles the auto manufacturers themselves have their vehicles crash tested at government certified independent labs which conduct the crash testing to government standards. Manufacturers are then allowed to claim the results of these tests as if the NHTSA had done them. Knowing this what Elio Motors will do is to also have their vehicle tested in the same way at one of these government certified independent labs. They will then be able to prove that their vehicles meet or exceed the government 5-star safety rating. After this testing I expect the "Engineered for a 5-Star Crash Test Safety Rating" to change to something along the lines of "Meets Government 5-Star Crash Test Safety Standard".