• Welcome to Elio Owners! Join today, registration is easy!

    You can register using your Google, Facebook, or Twitter account, just click here.

Energy Department Revives Fuel-efficient Vehicle Loan Program - March 26, 2015 - Wsj.com

Ekh

Elio Addict
Joined
May 2, 2014
Messages
3,794
Reaction score
9,525
Location
Loveland OH
First loan of the rejuvenated loan program meant to promote new ideas goes to an established, giant, global corporation with $24 billion in revenue and nearly $2 Billion in cash-on-hand!

Makes sense, they need the loan.


Wait, no it doesn't. Corporate welfare. :mad:


If you have money, you can borrow money. If you don't have money, the banks don't want to lend to you. That's why an ATVM loan guarantee is so important -- if there's no risk, the banks will loan. If it's risky, they either charge a lot more in interest or -- they won't loan.

Most of us learn this truth early in life. Some of us don't.
 

CheeseheadEarl

Elio Addict
Joined
May 15, 2014
Messages
765
Reaction score
2,147
Location
Across the river from Minnysota
OFF Topic (there goes a squirrel ),,just thingin out loud
Wonder what the Elio steel chassis weighs?? If Aluminum instead of steel .... MOre $$$, More reengineering, less weight.. they probably went thru that already , nevermind. Would be SUPER COOL with all aluminim farme :)
Be easy to re engineer to Al down the road. Some tooling mods needed for stamped parts, more complex to weld, but nothing that can't be done fairly easily in the big picture. Carbon fiber as mentioned by BlioKart on the other hand, is a complete process change.

An aluminum chassis higher hp "sport" Elio in year 2 or 3 is no less of a dream than the Elio itself, really.


My guess is that FoMoCo had a large hand in the ALCOA deal going through. The Al bodied F series need a LOT of material, a demand that was nonexistent (but not unplanned, note ALCOA's project began in 2013) a year ago.
 

satx

Elio Addict
Joined
Dec 8, 2014
Messages
202
Reaction score
271
Location
texas
Need more electricity for 1000s metric tons more of aluminum?

How about more wind and solar power? nah, wind production tax credit killed (but BigCarbon stills gets, without question, $Bs/year in untouchable tax breaks, subsidies).
 

BlioKart

Elio Addict
Joined
Mar 6, 2014
Messages
1,048
Reaction score
2,631
Location
SoCal
Be easy to re engineer to Al down the road. Some tooling mods needed for stamped parts, more complex to weld, but nothing that can't be done fairly easily in the big picture. Carbon fiber as mentioned by BlioKart on the other hand, is a complete process change.

An aluminum chassis higher hp "sport" Elio in year 2 or 3 is no less of a dream than the Elio itself, really.


My guess is that FoMoCo had a large hand in the ALCOA deal going through. The Al bodied F series need a LOT of material, a demand that was nonexistent (but not unplanned, note ALCOA's project began in 2013) a year ago.

Sadly all that aluminum will not transfer into other Ford products. I was thinking maybe an Aluminum Mustang chassis to finally bring down the weight. I like F150's but i have little use for a truck.
 
Top Bottom