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The Elio Team posted: "Happy Friday Elio’ers! We hope that you emerged from your holiday weekend unscathed, unburned, and relaxed. While we have another 7 weeks until the next “official” 3-day weekend, hopefully you have a summer vacation planned. Wherever you plan on travellin"
New post on Elio Motors
More E1a coverage!
by The Elio Team
Happy Friday Elio’ers! We hope that you emerged from your holiday weekend unscathed, unburned, and relaxed. While we have another 7 weeks until the next “official” 3-day weekend, hopefully you have a summer vacation planned. Wherever you plan on travelling this summer, there’s a chance that you’ll have the same plans as our Tour Team! If you want to stay in the loop and hopefully cross paths with the tour this summer, make sure to periodically check on this link. A summer vacation and a chance to spend some time with the tour team and the Elio- what could be better!
If, over your holiday weekend, you decided to not check your email or browse the web, you might have missed the tremendous progress we made last week. In front of more than 250 industry leaders, supplier partners, and media members, we unveiled our first completed E-Series vehicle: the E1a.
Before the E1a was unveiled, Paul Elio addressed the illustrious crowd. If you missed Paul’s remarks, click here. Not only were distinguished politicians and industry leaders in attendance, but the media presence was equally as impressive. For just a taste of the great coverage, click here and here.
The introduction of the E1a marks a crucial step forward, and many took notice. The E1a is only the beginning: our plan is to produce 23 E-Series vehicles to calibrate important systems that will ultimately improve the vehicle.
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The feedback we received on both the event and the vehicle itself was tremendous. It also generated some questions about the photos that came through email. As always, we strive to keep our fans informed throughout the process and we’d like to provide some clarity on these topics.
The E-Series vehicles are engineering vehicles and this step in the process allows us to learn more about the vehicle itself, the manufacture of the vehicle and make improvements based on what we learn. As the E-Series vehicles are manufactured and tested, we are able to improve various parts and/or systems for the final product. These improvements and changes will only happen as long they move forward our four main tenets: great gas mileage, ultra-affordable base price, safe, and made in America.
There are two topics that generated emails about the E1a: the body and the frame. The questions about the body were all regarding the “100% made of steel body.” Sheet molded composite is still the design direction but we are looking at other materials, i.e. steel and other automotive skin materials that could help us make the vehicle better, safer, more reliable and improve upon our four tenets. All changes and potential improvements must fit within our four tenets and our existing timeline to be considered.
If you saw the picture of the E1a, you probably noticed the changes to the frame. The photos showed more of a unibody construction than a reinforced steel roll cage. This is a change that we are testing to see if we can improve upon our already strong safety expectations for the Elio. Again, no decision has been finalized. This time has been allotted to look at potential changes that will help us build the best possible vehicle. Oh, and the production vehicle will be dipped for rust and corrosion- no worries!
As we continue to make progress with the E-Series vehicles, we will keep you, our fans, in the loop. Over the next couple of weeks, we will share information with you on any changes as they become etched in stone. Ultimately, the E-Series process is put in place to learn more about the manufacturing and engineering of the production Elio and allows us to build the best possible vehicle.
Elio Preview Tour:
July 7-9: Iola Car Show - Iola, WI - Iola Car Show Tower 130 Jenson Drive Iola, WI 54945 - Times: Thurs - Sat 9am-6pm - http://www.iolaoldcarshow.com
Thanks for coming along on the journey and thank you for your support
