Elio Kit, Would You Still Buy?

[Lil4X]

^^ And it would arrive with incomprehensible instructions and couple of screws missing.

 

[LGilbert]

For What It's Worth: this is probably highly valuable data for EM--don't be surprised if they are secretly trying to gather this data...current business model is overly dependent on inexperienced parts suppliers that know NOTHING of manufacturing vehicles. No shop, no money, no distribution centers, broken supply chain, no hiring, no execution plan beyond R&D means EM has about a 0.3% chance of successful launch with current business plan.

At least if they offer a kit version, they could sell tens or hundreds of thousands of them!

I have no idea where you have acquired your mis-information. All of Elio's suppliers are successful, suppliers of other successful automotive builders and are fully capable of supplying Elio's parts requirements and designs ( BMW engines, for example). Elio has a serious business model, a factory building with tooling lined up, no need for distributions centers, no broken supply chain (their supply model is a partnership with the suppliers) - where did you get this nonsense? They aren't hiring yet as the factory won't open until next year, they have a full execution plan far beyond the R&D (have you actually looked at their web site? or followed their public announcements, blog, forums, Facebook page). This forum has little place for nay-sayers. You're listed as a 'Fan'. I don't think so. You need to rethink why you are bothering to log in to this site.

Secondly, Your list of what a kit would be constitutes a plan for disaster. You need to investigate companies that are successful in providing kit cars (Factory Five would be a good example) to discover what makes a good kit. The FF 818 kit has everything you need to build the car less a very specific engine drivetrain and other parts from a doner specific car (Suburu) to standardize the quality control and allow for quality customer support. Superformance is another kit car company that is successful providing cars that are rollers, Noble M400s came the same way.

Elio wants to be a people's car with cache market strength not unlike Apple. They are modeling their regional centers after Apple, their delivery (24 hours from order to options installed and ready to deliver) such that only different colors have to be in stock as all other considerations are store installed, their support of 3rd party suppliers and accessories after Apple. If it works, then they will build a strong, fanatic following of well supported buyers that are their best salesmen. I can see, after they are established, that a kit car could be offered, but it would have everything necessary to complete the car, the chassis/body assembled, the engine/transmission tested and certified, and all parts exactly like the assembled model such that the results are supportable by their service centers. The cost would be a bit less as the owner now does the final assembly. Of course, the warranty would be different as the owner is also responsible for the quality control. Some people would find it fun to work out the building problems, most would not. It's a different market.

So, it is not possible to answer your survey, considering the high percentage build failures that would result from a haphazard, scrounger's kit as you describe. Such kits are very old school in the modern kit world. Whatever the savings from such a kit would be easily offset by the frustration an inexperienced kit builder would suffer.

 

[Edward]

^^ And it would arrive with incomprehensible instructions and couple of screws missing.

Missing? I always wind up with extra.

 

[whattheelf]

I have no idea where you have acquired your mis-information. All of Elio's suppliers are successful, suppliers of other successful automotive builders and are fully capable of supplying Elio's parts requirements and designs ( BMW engines, for example). Elio has a serious business model, a factory building with tooling lined up, no need for distributions centers, no broken supply chain (their supply model is a partnership with the suppliers) - where did you get this nonsense? They aren't hiring yet as the factory won't open until next year, they have a full execution plan far beyond the R&D (have you actually looked at their web site? or followed their public announcements, blog, forums, Facebook page). This forum has little place for nay-sayers. You're listed as a 'Fan'. I don't think so. You need to rethink why you are bothering to log in to this site.

Secondly, Your list of what a kit would be constitutes a plan for disaster. You need to investigate companies that are successful in providing kit cars (Factory Five would be a good example) to discover what makes a good kit. The FF 818 kit has everything you need to build the car less a very specific engine drivetrain and other parts from a doner specific car (Suburu) to standardize the quality control and allow for quality customer support. Superformance is another kit car company that is successful providing cars that are rollers, Noble M400s came the same way.

Elio wants to be a people's car with cache market strength not unlike Apple. They are modeling their regional centers after Apple, their delivery (24 hours from order to options installed and ready to deliver) such that only different colors have to be in stock as all other considerations are store installed, their support of 3rd party suppliers and accessories after Apple. If it works, then they will build a strong, fanatic following of well supported buyers that are their best salesmen. I can see, after they are established, that a kit car could be offered, but it would have everything necessary to complete the car, the chassis/body assembled, the engine/transmission tested and certified, and all parts exactly like the assembled model such that the results are supportable by their service centers. The cost would be a bit less as the owner now does the final assembly. Of course, the warranty would be different as the owner is also responsible for the quality control. Some people would find it fun to work out the building problems, most would not. It's a different market.

So, it is not possible to answer your survey, considering the high percentage build failures that would result from a haphazard, scrounger's kit as you describe. Such kits are very old school in the modern kit world. Whatever the savings from such a kit would be easily offset by the frustration an inexperienced kit builder would suffer.

I agree with you that the kit approach is completely ludicrous, just imagine all the calls to Elio tech support, plus EM has no cash now, how are they going to hire 5000 trained assemblers at call centers to teach mostly the incompetent how to build a conventional vehicle? People are funny, they idealize what they want but very few understand all the baggage which comes with that ideal.

As for EM's suppliers, sure I believe they have "picked" their suppliers, but doubt all of the suppliers have picked EM, its another stretch of a different kind, like their proposed factory is. Sure, Its really easy to "pick" a supplier, or say target a supplier, but EM needs a complete fully fleshed out significant number of internal supply chain specialists and purchasing agents to pull the thousands of vectors of moving parts around making this happen, which is NOT what an engineering consultancy does, neither wants to do, and so any performance in this area is likely negligible, at best.

Also, name brand tier 1 level volume suppliers are not going to put their time and energy very long into a dream if its not panning out very very well even to start, its not worth their time, they will simply walk from this type of money losing "business". If any of you have been around long enough, business works both ways at the supplier level.

I do believe say 60% however, of the IAV engine story, or at least the engine block part of it, and have no doubt that the majority of the EM staff is neck deep trying to sort out the thousands of parts, designs, analyses, materials etc etc with IAV, to try and meet a very aggressive cost goal. So,we'll just have to see how this goes, but don't be surprised if we all see more delays due to engine development and qualification issues.

For these reasons, private equity will keep EM at triple arm length, and EM runs out of cash either before launch, or just thereafter, and thats just being honestly kind.

 

[Lil4X]

An old friend got the bug to build a kit plane a few years ago, and after reviewing the market, he bought one of the most popular kits available, a Vans RV7A. It went together pretty smoothly, thanks to the help of a local club of Vans owner/builders who could offer helpful tips (and occasional labor) along the way. At several critical points in his build he had to have an FAA-certified inspector come out and review his work and sign off on critical points. It took nearly two years of evenings and weekends when he was able to get away from home and work on his project. In the end, he has a beautiful little 2-seater that flies well with no nasty habits. But it wasn't cheap.

Anyone looking to assemble a kit needs to figure in a lot of expenses that allow you to "save" money. First was renting a hangar for over a year. He built most of the sub-assemblies in his garage, but when he reached the stage that he had to put the wings on the fuselage, he had to move his operation to a nearby airfield and rent a hangar. OK, that would be needed when he actually completed the plane anyway, but renting hangar space for a year for an unflyable collection of parts was a little pricey.

Of course there are going to be bumps in the road - reworking those things you installed upside down, backwards, or on the wrong part of the project. They don't always cost money, but they do stretch out the build time, thus the "shed" rental. Without the support of his club being able to demonstrate proper build techniques (when he started, the guy was a IT tech, not a mechanic) and providing peer reviews along the way, the project would have probably taken another year.

The result of his project certainly was gratifying, if a bit more complex than he first thought, but well worth the effort. It's a beauty . . . seen here in its gorgeous paint job.

It's a real tribute to the commitment, skill, and patience of the pilot/constructor, but it wasn't easy, nor was it cheap. Most of these "home-builts" are never completed, but end up as pieces or partial assemblies, languishing in someone's garage before being sold at a deep discount to the next guy who thinks he can complete and fly it.

 

[Edward]

As for EM's suppliers, sure I believe they have "picked" their suppliers, but doubt all of the suppliers have picked EM, its another stretch of a different kind, like their proposed factory is. Sure, Its really easy to "pick" a supplier, or say target a supplier, but EM needs a complete fully fleshed out significant number of internal supply chain specialists and purchasing agents to pull the thousands of vectors of moving parts around making this happen, which is NOT what an engineering consultancy does, neither wants to do, and so any performance in this area is likely negligible, at best.

Also, name brand tier 1 level volume suppliers are not going to put their time and energy very long into a dream if its not panning out very very well even to start, its not worth their time, they will simply walk from this type of money losing "business". If any of you have been around long enough, business works both ways at the supplier level.

I do believe say 60% however, of the IAV engine story, or at least the engine block part of it, and have no doubt that the majority of the EM staff is neck deep trying to sort out the thousands of parts, designs, analyses, materials etc etc with IAV, to try and meet a very aggressive cost goal. So,we'll just have to see how this goes, but don't be surprised if we all see more delays due to engine development and qualification issues.

For these reasons, private equity will keep EM at triple arm length, and EM runs out of cash either before launch, or just thereafter, and thats just being honestly kind.

For Elio to list companies on their website, they will have to be under contract with them away, like they are with PepBoys.
The whole point behind using as many off-the-shelf parts as possible is nobody needs to maintain inventories of special parts. Keeps costs down fir everyone, including suppliers.

 

[whattheelf]

For Elio to list companies on their website, they will have to be under contract with them away, like they are with PepBoys.
The whole point behind using as many off-the-shelf parts as possible is nobody needs to maintain inventories of special parts. Keeps costs down fir everyone, including suppliers.

Yes we've all seen the list, which is essentially meaningless in reality, its just PR to appear legit to the mass market.

Here is a quick lesson in supply chain strategy. Its easy to approach manufacturers and distribution channels and forecast/quote high production numbers, to get a manufacturers attention, and commitment, by then asking, can we secure a relationship that allocates 20K of this one thing per month?

What usually follows, is barely a handshake from there, or at the most an LOI (letter of intent), as suppliers tend to believe it when they see the firm orders, so an LOI bears ZERO liability between buyer and seller, its to help create PR, and as a piece of paper to hand out bonuses to certain individuals working under certain MBO goals.

What matters in these relationships, is that to maintain your top tier status with a supplier, you have to maintain a certain volume demand, or you get bumped down in priority to a lower tier, and THEN your price points increase upward, if not alot if you are not ordering to forecast, and then you may get relegated to a middleman reseller for all the parts you need, PLUS then your delivery schedule gets pushed out ALOT. You can't get most favored pricing if you aren't buying what you promise, and those numbers are not going to come for a dozen top reasons already well explained prior.

So Paul's engineering team can spec out all the parts it wants, and get all the LOIs they want so they can post up a fancy website page, but its relatively meaningless at this stage.

Its really too bad they couldn't spec out an off the shelf engine, at least to launch, because likely Paul is dumping just about all of his free cash into the NRE (non-recurring up front design and tooling charges) to create the unique engine from IAV, instead of maybe spreading out a little of the cash trying to occupy a few brick and mortar point of purchase dealers in key urban/suburban areas, to GENERATE INTEREST. This is WHY he needs to go from 55M of funding currently to 200M+ just to launch.

IAV simply wlll not build an engine from scratch on spec unless EM absolutely ponies up all the NRE, up front. Then, it won't get allocated into a mass production schedule unless IAV knows its going to be shipping tens of thousands of these per month, as EM forecasts, and they keep getting high dollar payments, as they are not going to tie up foundries for low volumes either. If they get bumped to a small lot foundry, block prices increase substantially.

Building a business like this is both a skilled artform and a science, the design may be an artform but thats the end of it there. Pauls' engineering consultancy focuses on what it does best, and likes to do best, which is spend the lion share of their time working on really really hard technical stuff, when the actual hardest work needs to be on developing the demand it needs.

With the launch being pushed out another 12-16 months because of this ground up engine build, the good news is they have more time to attract interest, but the really bad news however is all the extra time and wait scares away interest. Unless you've been through something similar launching a real company, you never really can fully understand why this is not going to happen, sorry to say.

 

[pj rogers]

Paul Elio walked out of the Pontiac meeting with 5 million in his hand. Ok, now you find a small assembly operations and you build some P2 prototypes, say 25. At a cost of $125,000 each...that's 3 Million. Use brand xxxxx motor and tranny. That might have been the green one? Put 5 on tour, and the 10 in major airports. We have all seen the kiosks with vehicles in them. Use the other 10 for testing. Orders will come in especially if EM can add $10,000 profit to each one. A P2 elio may cost $50,000 but people will buy.. (Tesla, any one? and 80mpg+) Might be tight for a year, but then P3 comes aboard, a little less than theP2, say $40,000, same program..sell the airport demo P2's for $20 grand...then do it again, and again...A new elio every year for 5 years..and finally, a $12,999 elio. That would have been done with no investors at all. It would also be a workable plan. Never bite off more than you can chew..."he is crazy or the next henry ford"....been seven years....they are preparing a room for him right now!

 

[Kent]

So the kit p

Seeing that Elio Motors is not likely to raise its 200M by next year, would you still buy if the business model changed to producing a kit version?

Assume kit includes:

• frame, chassis, doors, hinges
• Signals, mirrors, exterior lights, glass
• Interior bits--dash, HVAC controls with flaps, heater, AC box, fan, blank port for radio/GPS/electronics
• Reinforced engine and transmission mount points and customizable hardware for most transverse 3 or 4 cylinder donor engines, including fluid-filled pendulum style mount bushings. Includes "dog-bone" bushings and various mounting points to prevent front/back engine swing.
• exhaust mount hangers and brackets with many mount locations and heat shielding kit.
• Emblems, paint options, protective coatings options.
• Latches, locks, pre-keyed. Hood and trunk struts as options.
• Recommended tire and wheel list.
• Suspension components with options for tune-ability.
• Brakes or brake recommendations for 'plug & play' friendliness.
• Engine/transmission recommended list with build sheets and wiring harness rewiring guides.
• gas tank or bladder with mounts and pumps.
• Shipping to your front door

If you had to provide the drivetrain and integrate it, would you buy?

Please be open-minded and just treat this as a "what if?" question.

Rice

Seeing that Elio Motors is not likely to raise its 200M by next year, would you still buy if the business model changed to producing a kit version?

Assume kit includes:

• frame, chassis, doors, hinges
• Signals, mirrors, exterior lights, glass
• Interior bits--dash, HVAC controls with flaps, heater, AC box, fan, blank port for radio/GPS/electronics
• Reinforced engine and transmission mount points and customizable hardware for most transverse 3 or 4 cylinder donor engines, including fluid-filled pendulum style mount bushings. Includes "dog-bone" bushings and various mounting points to prevent front/back engine swing.
• exhaust mount hangers and brackets with many mount locations and heat shielding kit.
• Emblems, paint options, protective coatings options.
• Latches, locks, pre-keyed. Hood and trunk struts as options.
• Recommended tire and wheel list.
• Suspension components with options for tune-ability.
• Brakes or brake recommendations for 'plug & play' friendliness.
• Engine/transmission recommended list with build sheets and wiring harness rewiring guides.
• gas tank or bladder with mounts and pumps.
• Shipping to your front door

If you had to provide the drivetrain and integrate it, would you buy?

Please be open-minded and just treat this as a "what if?" question.

Only one of the kit options is below the $6800 that the production car is supposedly going to cost. That seems to be almost a certainty that the production model will definitely cost WAY more than the advertised $6800.

 

[zelio]

So the kit p

Rice


Only one of the kit options is below the $6800 that the production car is supposedly going to cost. That seems to be almost a certainty that the production model will definitely cost WAY more than the advertised $6800.

Except the kit idea is the figment of the creative imagination of one of our members as a way to pass the time. Elio is not planning on offering a kit but they are planning on selling the Elio for $6800. :-) Z