Elio Kit, Would You Still Buy?

[BlioKart]

I don't mind building it but it wouldn't make sense if it cost alot since the time and labor required. Not exactly like a Factory Five kit car at the end you get an economy car not a Cobra

I think what you want is a complete rolling chassis that way you can insert whatever engine/trans you want. Elio Hayabusa? Yes please.

 

[Ty]

Hmm. Sure. Could I simply hire some.people to do it for me? Maybe some southerners... like in Louisiana? Maybe I could rent out a former GM plant to do it... Yeah, that's what Ill do. Could they just deliver the parts to Shreveport instead of to my door? Maybe I could contract with some national chain in case I need any maintenance done. I wonder if IAV would build a motor for me...

Kidding aside, I would consider building a kit but it would have to be quite a bit cheaper and it would have to be all inclusive.

Elio wouldn't do this. It would cost them more to pack and ship all the parts than it would to just assemble the things in the first place.

 

[RMClubfitter]

Don't think I want to allocate the time it would take me to assemble such a project. To many golf courses left to play.

 

[elio_curious]

If the kit was well organized and relatively easy to put together, like a "big" RC car kit (which I have done) sure, why not. I would not want to deal with selecting and fitting my own engine and tranny though, I'd prefer that to simply be part of the kit. Shipping the whole package to my door - that might be expensive, unless there's some distributor you go to with a truck and trailer to pick the whole thing up.

 

[elio_curious]

Actually a really clever kit would be where it's partially assembled, to the point where you could tow the kit home, a rolling chassis.

 

[Snick]

+1 for factory five.

It's funny how some of you think that Elio's current business model is "easier" than making kits. Sure, it's easier for YOU, but insanely more difficult. I do process engineering for new product introduction--this stuff is HARD. Elio is waaaaaaaay out of their league with no experience and no apparent plans. Mass producing vehicles is outside of their capability envelope, I'm afraid. The still seem to be self-deluding that "the suppliers will figure it out for us by designing their parts to work together"...yeah, good luck with that. Ain't gonna work. Someone needs to be in charge! They don't seem to have any Manufacturing Operations team or team leader of any sort. They're flailing wildly, IMO.

Making kit cars on the other hand MIGHT BE within their realm of competence--if they could produce a kit HALF as good as a Factory Five kit, they'd be doing a wonderful thing.

 

[creekstone]

They don't seem to have any Manufacturing Operations team or team leader of any sort.

Really?

Gino Raffin, Vice President of Manufacturing and Product Launch, is a 40-year auto industry veteran and former Chrysler Corp. manufacturing executive.

 

[whattheelf]

+1 for factory five.

It's funny how some of you think that Elio's current business model is "easier" than making kits. Sure, it's easier for YOU, but insanely more difficult. I do process engineering for new product introduction--this stuff is HARD. Elio is waaaaaaaay out of their league with no experience and no apparent plans. Mass producing vehicles is outside of their capability envelope, I'm afraid. The still seem to be self-deluding that "the suppliers will figure it out for us by designing their parts to work together"...yeah, good luck with that. Ain't gonna work. Someone needs to be in charge! They don't seem to have any Manufacturing Operations team or team leader of any sort. They're flailing wildly, IMO.

Making kit cars on the other hand MIGHT BE within their realm of competence--if they could produce a kit HALF as good as a Factory Five kit, they'd be doing a wonderful thing.

2x that. Unless people have worked and supported a complex volume assembly operation, they have no idea what it takes to produce such a product. I get this sound byte back that hey they have 500M worth of prior GM equipment, and as you know in Process Engineering, thats just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what its going to take in both cost and time, to modify, test, adjust, fix, and rinse and repeat, by perhaps a few hundred if not more focused on just that piece of the order fulfillment process.

Its not that we wouldn't love to own one, but the barriers to entry are just about next to impossible, without a ton of funding, to withstand the FUD factor for perhaps years on end, and in an increasingly complex and competitive market. The Honda Civic just doesn't get displaced overnite, and if there is even a hint that Elio displacing a fraction of a % of Honda sales, Honda will steamroller over this niche in one of several ways and break up the demographic, if not Toyota, to gain market share.

So the production assembly/fulfillment process is a massive climb by itself, but the business end and all its other realities is far more brutal than mother nature itself. The only way people are going to see "kits" is when this company goes under and someone buys out whatever inventory they have for pennies on the dollar so a few with the know how can put one together, and if they can do that, they can likely do all their own work.

 

[creekstone]

Unless people have worked and supported a complex volume assembly operation, they have no idea what it takes to produce such a product.

I agree...

Gino Raffin, Vice President of Manufacturing and Product Launch, is a 40-year auto industry veteran and former Chrysler Corp. manufacturing executive.

 

[whattheelf]

I agree...

Gino Raffin, Vice President of Manufacturing and Product Launch, is a 40-year auto industry veteran and former Chrysler Corp. manufacturing executive.

It was implied "unless people here on this forum have an understanding of volume manufacturing".

Gino has qualifications, that is the kind of guy you hire to start, but he needs a massive competent experienced team underneath him to execute, and long before he can do that, and transform that entire facility, they need hundreds of millions of dollars.

Last I heard they were to hire 800 people for the plant in Shreveport this summer, so lets see how that goes, long before we even start to talk real production.