Factory Pickup, Retail Store Pickup, Or Delivery

[Ekh]

If you assume Elio will have stores up and running by the time production starts Sept. 2015......they had better have started locking in physical site locations and started construction or remodel of existing lease locations. Partnering with an established auto carrier to ship to your home or nearest Pep Boys location is more realistic. Quite frankly setting up Elio Store in or adjacent to Pep Boys is a wise business strategy for convenient customer access to sales, installation of options, and servicing. A win, win, win. scenario.

I sure hope Elio reads this. The stores don't need to be very big -- no work is being done at them other than ordering and signing off on delivery. So putting them in existing Pep Boys is a terrific idea!

 

[Ekh]

After the reservation period the retail stores will open and we have a better idea of the plan at that time even if some details are missing. The plan is for the plant to produce 14 base models with the only difference between vehicles being the seven color and two transmission options. After completing basic assembly the majority of the vehicles will likely be loaded onto rail cars for delivery to 6 to 11 remote distribution/marshaling/finishing centers throughout the country. The remaining vehicles will be completed by the finishing center which is part of the Shreveport factory complex for factory pick-up or delivery to nearby retail stores.

When a buyer places an order for a new Elio at an Elio Motors retail store or online this order is routed to the nearest distribution/finishing center where the base vehicle selected is then outfitted with options by technicians and prepared for delivery. The vehicle will then be loaded onto a truck for delivery to the retail store or direct to your home depending on what level of service you selected. Elio's stated goal is to try and have vehicles prepared and ready for pickup at retail stores the very next day. I am sure there will be a lot of asterisks by this next day goal and it will likely not be guaranteed as this will depend on many factors such as time of day, sales volume, vehicle availability. and parts availability.

As always, you are far from goofy, Goofy! I suppose they're going to look at the reservations and see how the color / tranny options fall out (X black/auto to Y creamsicle / auto to Z red/standard) and build cars in the appropriate proportions ... with a database of 30,000 orders, they can probably get a pretty reliable handle on the top combinations, and build more of those on spec.

If they're to meet their goals of getting you your car within 24 hours of ordering (highly unlikely, I suspect ... a week's more likely), they're going to have to have an enormous inventory ... but even so, some color/tranny options will be relatively unpopular and probably a bit hard to get. ("Ok, gang, this is the 12th. Think we can run 200 lime / standards on the 24th?")

Maybe we should start a pool on what the the favorite combination / least favorite ones will be!

 

[ks6c]

I just hope that for those planning on picking up their cars and driving 500 miles or so, that the break-in period doesn't really mean the break-down period! Just make sure you route via Pep Boys every 25 miles of so....

For those who might be concerned, a POI file of all US Pep Boys locations for your gps can be found on poi-factory.com. Need to register to download files...

 

[JP]

I would think that when you go to build your Elio online, Elio will ask you if you will be shipping or picking up. I think they will email you some info about shipping should you choose to. I'd think they would have a contract with 1 national company and just ship them door to door if there isn't any distribution centers set up by then, which I doubt. Door to door shipping for the first years seems reasonable, which will give them time to get retail space. I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't thought about retail stores much, as they first have to get enough money and a running engine for the car.

 

[goofyone]

24 hours to customize and deliver a car is very ambitious however as EM builds its database of orders and analyzes the patterns I believe they will be able to optimize the efficiency of the system to the point that the vast majority of orders will be filled much faster than most people may believe possible. I believe that EM will eventually be able to fill most orders within two business days as we already know certain colors are much more popular than others, the majority of buyers will choose automatic transmissions, and most people will choose to outfit their vehicles with a small list of normal options such as cruise control. The 60,000 or so reservation orders will definitely give EM some good insights into how to begin building retail vehicles and over time they will get better as they receive more sales information including good breakdowns of what is moving by region and time of year.

By the way this type of highly integrated design, manufacturing, sales, and distribution with limited production line variations and most options added to order at remote sites is not actually unique to Elio Motors. Elio Motors is actually taking a well proven idea that GM has been using very successfully in Brazil since 2000 and adapting it to their goals here in the USA. Even in Brazil, with much more limited infrastructure as Brazil does not have the quality of rail and road network we have, GM is able to deliver these build to order vehicles in under a week.

http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/eag/246374.htm

 

[NN4S]

There is no UAW in Shreveport's Elio Plant. Management and labor practices will be interesting to watch as hiring the new Elio Motors work force unfolds.

As a former UAW member, please allow me this opportunity to say "Woo-hoo!!!" on it not being involved. Having spent 25 years hanging onto the bottom rung as they continued to lift the ladder higher & higher, without ever hiring anyone underneath & continuously protecting the folks with seniority above me that had decide long ago not to work for a living, I'm THRILLED to buy an American-made vehicle that is being built by a company not under the stranglehold. Don't get me wrong- there was a time in our history when the unions provided workers a great service. Unfortunately, that time has long since passed us by and they currently do nothing more for the majority of the members than support the deadwood for a chunk of their paycheck.

That's my opinion, so make of it what you may. I do feel that I more or less broke even over the years for what I was able to get out ot the union AFTER my job was sent to Mexico and I needed documentation to get my job at the college. Speaking of which, did you know that the D.O.L. doesn't keep records of your Journeyman card for more than 5 years?

 

[skygazer6033]

NN4S-- Don't hold back tell us how you really feel. Having to put up with airline union's for many years I'm not fond of union's myself.

 

[KC_Cacti]

Wife and I are planning a Amtrack trip to pick our Elio up. Plant tour would be a bonus.

Didn't even think about doing Amtrack , do they go into Shreveport? I will have to see if I can get a ticket from KC to Shreveport if they do.

 

[zelio]

Didn't even think about doing Amtrack , do they go into Shreveport? I will have to see if I can get a ticket from KC to Shreveport if they do.

They do not go directly to Shreveport but there is connecting bus service to Shreveport from Longview, TX. You would have to go from KC to St Louis and change trains and then down to Longview, TX. If it is like here, the bus is part of Amtrak services and is quite luxurious. :-) Z

 

[goofyone]

They do not go directly to Shreveport but there is connecting bus service to Shreveport from Longview, TX. You would have to go from KC to St Louis and change trains and then down to Longview, TX. If it is like here, the bus is part of Amtrak services and is quite luxurious. :-) Z

I believe when Americans hear about a bus they immediately imagine Greyhound. As Z mentions Amtrak buses are very nice and comfortable modern coaches. They are generally clean and well maintained and as they are sold as part of train journeys the passengers tend to be quite different from the ones you find on Greyhound.