Investor Question Answered...

[Ty]

Their board of directors is a shambles. Stu has zero interest in the long term success of EM, and some of the others are in over thier heads or merely there to collect a fat paycheck. The ex Chrysler exec? Priceless--a failure from a failed company doing...what? There is no build team, no OPS, no testing plan in place. R & E is running around in circles revising the thing endlessly.

This is a board desparately in need of a leader, and full of committed members. You could fire half the board and get more done with a better leader.

I didn't get any of that from the post.
1. Stu has zero interest...? How do you figure that? He has $7.5M invested in Elio.
2. ...some of the others are in over their heads merely to collect a fat paycheck (from a company you have doomed?)
3. I'll concede that Chrysler isn't the best run corporation but why call him a failure? Maybe he did fail at convincing his bosses...
4. No build team?... fair enough but they aren't building yet.
5. No OPS? They are Turing the country... among other things... that's got to be some kind of operations
6. No testing plan? IAV is testing the motor but the vehicle, other than driving around, hasn't been tested much that I know of.
7. ...revising endlessly? P4... 4 revisions... hmm, not that many.

My turn... same 7 but I'll just have fun with it
1. Stu, seeing the opportunity to rent out the rest of the GM plant, jumped on the opportunity to lease out part to Elio. As Stu's corporation owns 7 other properties in Shreveport that are automotive related and stands to make a fortune if Elio succeeds.
2. Experts from the auto industry have collectively 117 years in various areas from interior production to basically all areas of expertise in the industry... comau has been involved in auto manufacturing automation for years...
3. Yeah... Chrysler sucks... been out of business twice... but as the director of sales at Chrysler, well, if you don't have a product that's good, it is really hard to sell them no matter who you are. But, he knows the business and has 27 years of experience.
4. The build team is in Shreveport and has been in place for at least 18 years... seriously, it's not that hard to screw these things together... Plus, a lot of the GM employees would probably come back and would help ease the transition.
5. OPS... oh yeah... build a following, check... find a factory, an engine, suppliers, maintenance partner, check,check,check, and check... It's not like they need to have everything in place this early in the game.
6. The engine is undergoing static testing and the Elios are being driven out in the real world (I've even seen one in the snow... gasp). Of course, they don't need to test extensively till the design is finished.
7. Only 4 prototypes in 8 years? Only 4???

Okay... I didn't do any name calling but I do hate when people make.wild.accusations based on what they "think" should be happening when, though slow going, Elio seems to be making progress in a logical, calculated way. Sure, the delay on securing the plant and the gang order made it seem they had lost traction but anyone taking note of the milestones they have been taking would be hard pressed to not be able to see the progress. Instead of taking a "Elio is stupid. Their people are stupid. I say they are doing it wrong and everyone on this forum is stupider (yeah, that's not a real word) than me" approach, how about constructive comments? "Hey, why didn't Elio bring in Alan Mulally, Ford's very successful CEO?"

Anyway, that's my one mean post of the month. Enjoy.

 

[Snick]

Last time I checked the filings, Stu has yet to invest a single penny into EM. Has that changed in the past ten days or so?

How is the last year's worth of excuses and delays "making serious progress"?

Constructively: EM needs to get off it's dreamy ass and get to work sweating. By OPS I mean Manufacturing/Operations, and not touring the car around. That's called marketing, which they're quite good at. What they suck at is execution. I've been following EM since 2008.

 

[Music Man]

I didn't get any of that from the post.
1. Stu has zero interest...? How do you figure that? He has $7.5M invested in Elio.
2. ...some of the others are in over their heads merely to collect a fat paycheck (from a company you have doomed?)
3. I'll concede that Chrysler isn't the best run corporation but why call him a failure? Maybe he did fail at convincing his bosses...
4. No build team?... fair enough but they aren't building yet.
5. No OPS? They are Turing the country... among other things... that's got to be some kind of operations
6. No testing plan? IAV is testing the motor but the vehicle, other than driving around, hasn't been tested much that I know of.
7. ...revising endlessly? P4... 4 revisions... hmm, not that many.

My turn... same 7 but I'll just have fun with it
1. Stu, seeing the opportunity to rent out the rest of the GM plant, jumped on the opportunity to lease out part to Elio. As Stu's corporation owns 7 other properties in Shreveport that are automotive related and stands to make a fortune if Elio succeeds.
2. Experts from the auto industry have collectively 117 years in various areas from interior production to basically all areas of expertise in the industry... comau has been involved in auto manufacturing automation for years...
3. Yeah... Chrysler sucks... been out of business twice... but as the director of sales at Chrysler, well, if you don't have a product that's good, it is really hard to sell them no matter who you are. But, he knows the business and has 27 years of experience.
4. The build team is in Shreveport and has been in place for at least 18 years... seriously, it's not that hard to screw these things together... Plus, a lot of the GM employees would probably come back and would help ease the transition.
5. OPS... oh yeah... build a following, check... find a factory, an engine, suppliers, maintenance partner, check,check,check, and check... It's not like they need to have everything in place this early in the game.
6. The engine is undergoing static testing and the Elios are being driven out in the real world (I've even seen one in the snow... gasp). Of course, they don't need to test extensively till the design is finished.
7. Only 4 prototypes in 8 years? Only 4???

Okay... I didn't do any name calling but I do hate when people make.wild.accusations based on what they "think" should be happening when, though slow going, Elio seems to be making progress in a logical, calculated way. Sure, the delay on securing the plant and the gang order made it seem they had lost traction but anyone taking note of the milestones they have been taking would be hard pressed to not be able to see the progress. Instead of taking a "Elio is stupid. Their people are stupid. I say they are doing it wrong and everyone on this forum is stupider (yeah, that's not a real word) than me" approach, how about constructive comments? "Hey, why didn't Elio bring in Alan Mulally, Ford's very successful CEO?"

Anyway, that's my one mean post of the month. Enjoy.

I love your "post," Ty. Wow! And I am ALL with you, but take it from me. . . . . . ., watch over your shoulder. . . . . . The negative, naysayers will surely tar and feather you if they can catch you. o_O

 

[bowers baldwin]

 

[whattheelf]

Well Jim, I'm relieved that our questions were answered. Now, we can all kick back and relax, let the naysayers throw their negative take at this but in the end, we're the ones laughing because our Elio is headed for production! I can now sign off for a while until the next update!

Be really careful about who is laughing at who here.

I don't particularly enjoy honestly having to be the voice of rationality here, but I'll give you a lesson on particularly well crafted spin jobs, such as the so-called response from Elio above.

First, having a "strategy" is a clever way of saying "no we don't have the 200M funding we have repeatedly said we needed to launch".

Now a strategy to launch into production, may involve a "plan", it includes the Engineering "Release to Manufacturing (RTM) Plan, the "Operations Plan", and once again, the "Funding Plan".

The truth is 6 months ago if not more you could of wrote Elio the same inquiry and get exactly the same no-response, response. It says nothing new.

They said over and over, we need 200M to launch, that gets you actually likely thru 1 year of so-called "production". So, a simple "YES we have the funding for that", would of sufficed. But, all you have is a "strategy", no details, and the devil is in the details.

WHY? Because we already knew they have those board members, and if you knew anything about board members, they are always board members on other boards, manage other businesses, and own other businesses. So its not like all these people are sitting around a conference table for 10 hours a day working their "strategy", they are not, they are their ONLY for advice, and ONLY once in awhile, which is few meetings, if at all. Board members are put together to try and give some clout behind what is going on, and by the way MOST operations with 3x as many board members of even greater depth, FAIL.

WHAT this also means, is if they had the funding, these "board members" would of already ponied up the measly 150M they still need. So whats the problem here Elio? Can't tell us you have the funding? Can't tell us what your so-called "alternative options" are?

Make no mistake, that response was one of the worst say nothing fluff pieces I've seen to date from Elio. Take a walk over to their Facebook page and see the onslaught of lack of information, where they have 100K people supposedly looking at their page.

So, still smoke and mirrors, and its going to remain smoke and mirrors until the day arrives where the press release says "we got the 200M".

Nothing matters in the least until then. Also, just contacting them and pretending you have a few people interested, is not going to get you any attention.

You want attention, data, real info. Call Elio, tell them you have 1000 reservations all in non-refundable, and you want 30 minutes to speak with Paul. See if you get it, throw your balls up onto the table and get real data and not just fluff repeated vaporware that the above is, along with everything else to date, promises based on spin.

The problem with many believers here, like all believers, you see what you want to see, hear what you want to hear, and avoid the discomfort, or rather the ignorance behind how real businesses operate, and actually communicate, to build confidence. This company doesn't build confidence, it builds prototypes on non-refundable deposits.

Lastly, Lichter is an idiot when it comes to either participating or advising a volume automobile business, he sells real estate. Just for fun, ask your Elio pen pal there where is Stu's supposed 7.5M he was ponying up, for some reason its taking the long way round getting into the funding total, and then find out what the other board members are tossing in, honestly, find out.

So, stop with these fluffy believer say nothing posts, its just childish and embarrassing. When they get the funding to launch, THEN you can say something. Til then take a business course, or ten.

 

[ecdriver711]

Good news and quick response. The Elio people must have caught on that no news is leads to made up bad news by several uninformed people.

 

[Ty]

Last time I checked the filings, Stu has yet to invest a single penny into EM. Has that changed in the past ten days or so?

How is the last year's worth of excuses and delays "making serious progress"?

Constructively: EM needs to get off it's dreamy ass and get to work sweating. By OPS I mean Manufacturing/Operations, and not touring the car around. That's called marketing, which they're quite good at. What they suck at is execution. I've been following EM since 2008.

They just secured the plant in May and they went quite finalized the design of the car yet. I'd suspect that this Summer will see the finalized (or at least finalized enough to almost fully set up the assembly line - they can tweak still even with the line laid out) car... They worked on getting a place... they have one. It's only been a month since they "moved in". It takes at least a little while to set things up, get the place organized, etc. If we don't see manufacturing operations starting soon or at least equipment being moved out/into the plant, I'd be concerned about the pace of operations. They can, of course, keep on touring and doing interviews, etc. while gearing up at the factory. But, I wouldn't go so far as to say they haven't made serious progress. Getting a factory finally after all this time is a pretty serious step. Now that they have a home and are paying to keep the lights on, you'll see changes coming faster. It has taken them a long time to get this far but even Henry Ford had a rough go at it in the beginning and look how that turned out.

 

[rmcelroy]

Why do people like Snick even frequent boards about things they hate. Is it an overwhelming desire to make as many people possible as miserable as them?

Don't answer Snick, I wont see it!

 

[AriLea]

Why do people like Snick even frequent boards about things they hate. Is it an overwhelming desire to make as many people possible as miserable as them?

I'm going to retact part of this and rewrite some of it.... I review a lot of material here, and frankly, I over reacted. And I was a bit snarky. There is a bit of pessimisim to be sure all around from some number of people, but for some I think it's often honest worry. So, In reference to the start-ups such as Aptera, the Sparrow and especially ZAP; There is definitely a bad track record out there for startups with innovative products. The failures have (usually) been laid on the issue of financing. Which really isn't (always) true. The financing was (often) an effect of other failures. Elio plays the financing activity very close to the chest, which does leave some room for conjecture. I am expecting Elio has cards to play in creative financing that others didn't think of, and they aren't addmitting. This huge count of Elio reservations is likely critical in leveraging any financing plan. I'm sure that some contenders want to undermine that. They kind of failed, in a big way.
I have to agree with one part of 'Snick's complaint and I think he's just pressing the point, maybe a bit to extreme for my taste, but I must reconsider, I've become obsessed with the Elio and I get a bit defensive. I truely feel like that toward Gas2.Org, which doesn't like Elio at all because (I suspect) it doesn't fit their profile of glamorous electric supercars. I'd like to point out for Gas2 that an EV conversion of an Elio would be super interesting(and cool), but would kick the investment up by almost double, and the eMPG up by about the same. If that holds true I calculate the value point of the capital investment is more than $200 per MPG, or about 16,800, well above the cost of the EV drive and batteries. In such a case an eElio could be the first ELECTRIC vehicle that actually makes economic sense. Elio Motors are about the smartest people I've found to make those customer-cost calculations. I think an eElio could very likely be introduced 2 years after the base car is in the market and widely successful.
Anyway, I'm 100% behind ElioMotors, but it will not be easy. It's the money honey and that's always a tuff go.

 

[Music Man]

As a tribute to bowers baldwin, and I quote:

, and I am specifically speaking of "snick!"