Paul Elio Presentation And Questions

[TCBronson]

I saw this today on You Tube and thought it was pretty good. It is an hour long but worth watching.

 

[TCBronson]

He addresses the seat belt issue and it makes perfect sense not to have the belt in the way of a passenger climbing in to the back seat.

 

[BADBOY]

I got the email from EM earlier and watched; most we already know but what stood out and concerns me most is Paul in two interviews said he expects first year production to be 250,000 cars. Okay that's cool but he then said he believes they "will pre-sale" that amount "before production begins."

Wait..what? He did repeat the early 2016 time frame and again refused to give a more specific date. That's cool also but if he thinks they will have reservations of 250,000 between now and then well that is way more optimistic than I have heard. He said this twice in two different interviews.

In the one at SFU he said that they have other ways to finance startup if the gov't loan does not come through. He also said he has one wealthy investor that is supporting them now. PE also replied to a question that he did not want to go public as he did not want to lose control but did realize that investors may seek that eventually so they can cash out (my words).

I hope I misunderstood the quarter million sales before production. Oh and I thought there was the P5 (E1) built next and use the $30 million from crowd funding to build 25 more to test. In one of the interviews, he twice said that $ would build 31 cars; 25 for testing and the other 5 I did not get.

 

[Ty]

I got the email from EM earlier and watched; most we already know but what stood out and concerns me most is Paul in two interviews said he expects first year production to be 250,000 cars. Okay that's cool but he then said he believes they "will pre-sale" that amount "before production begins."

Wait..what? He did repeat the early 2016 time frame and again refused to give a more specific date. That's cool also but if he thinks they will have reservations of 250,000 between now and then well that is way more optimistic than I have heard. He said this twice in two different interviews.

In the one at SFU he said that they have other ways to finance startup if the gov't loan does not come through. He also said he has one wealthy investor that is supporting them now. PE also replied to a question that he did not want to go public as he did not want to lose control but did realize that investors may seek that eventually so they can cash out (my words).

I hope I misunderstood the quarter million sales before production. Oh and I thought there was the P5 (E1) built next and use the $30 million from crowd funding to build 25 more to test. In one of the interviews, he twice said that $ would build 31 cars; 25 for testing and the other 5 I did not get.

You did NOT mis-hear him. He thought (might still think) he would reach 250,000 reservations before production starts. He still might. Once the car is about to be produced and there are no more hurdles other than just getting started, people will start ordering. I think he meant that each Elio would be sold before it was produced. In other words, while manufacturing all the existing pre-sales, more will come in and there will be no Elio produced without having a buyer waiting on it.

I could be wrong there but remember, Paul spoke at St. Francis back in March of this year. I wonder if he's changed his pre-order estimates since then.

 

[Jeff Porter]

I got the email from EM earlier and watched; most we already know but what stood out and concerns me most is Paul in two interviews said he expects first year production to be 250,000 cars. Okay that's cool but he then said he believes they "will pre-sale" that amount "before production begins."

Wait..what? He did repeat the early 2016 time frame and again refused to give a more specific date. That's cool also but if he thinks they will have reservations of 250,000 between now and then well that is way more optimistic than I have heard. He said this twice in two different interviews.

In the one at SFU he said that they have other ways to finance startup if the gov't loan does not come through. He also said he has one wealthy investor that is supporting them now. PE also replied to a question that he did not want to go public as he did not want to lose control but did realize that investors may seek that eventually so they can cash out (my words).

I hope I misunderstood the quarter million sales before production. Oh and I thought there was the P5 (E1) built next and use the $30 million from crowd funding to build 25 more to test. In one of the interviews, he twice said that $ would build 31 cars; 25 for testing and the other 5 I did not get.

You did NOT mis-hear him. He thought (might still think) he would reach 250,000 reservations before production starts. He still might. Once the car is about to be produced and there are no more hurdles other than just getting started, people will start ordering. I think he meant that each Elio would be sold before it was produced. In other words, while manufacturing all the existing pre-sales, more will come in and there will be no Elio produced without having a buyer waiting on it.

I could be wrong there but remember, Paul spoke at St. Francis back in March of this year. I wonder if he's changed his pre-order estimates since then.

I agree with you guys, and I think there's some mystery assumptions or hidden information that Paul has in his mind. Possibilities, again these are just guesses from my feeble mind, no facts:

• Maybe they've done some forecasting and predicting, and feel that once production officially starts, hundreds of orders per day will start coming in (basically what Ty said)
• There are several thousand reservations for fleet sales, that are not shown in the reservation public total of 44,556 currently; (some months ago on Facebook, Elio Motors said that "some" of the fleet sales do show in the reservation total, who knows how many)
• We assume 250k cars produced means 250k reservations; we must remember that they have to build up inventory to sell at the stores; just some super wild guesses: 60k reservations before production starts + 20k fleet sales before productions starts + 100k orders during first 6 months of production + 70k for national inventory once stores open = 250k cars produced during first year

 

[Rickb]

I agree with you guys, and I think there's some mystery assumptions or hidden information that Paul has in his mind. Possibilities, again these are just guesses from my feeble mind, no facts:

• Maybe they've done some forecasting and predicting, and feel that once production officially starts, hundreds of orders per day will start coming in (basically what Ty said)
• There are several thousand reservations for fleet sales, that are not shown in the reservation public total of 44,556 currently; (some months ago on Facebook, Elio Motors said that "some" of the fleet sales do show in the reservation total, who knows how many)
• We assume 250k cars produced means 250k reservations; we must remember that they have to build up inventory to sell at the stores; just some super wild guesses: 60k reservations before production starts + 20k fleet sales before productions starts + 100k orders during first 6 months of production + 70k for national inventory once stores open = 250k cars produced during first year

I believe the EM Sales Model is to build vehicles to order, not inventory the Elio Stores, but rather only demo vehicles.

 

[Jeff Porter]

I believe the EM Sales Model is to build vehicles to order, not inventory the Elio Stores, but rather only demo vehicles.

Yeah I hear ya Rick, not to have them sitting at the store, but rather them sitting at the marshaling center.

Is it really possible, that once the stores are open, there's less than say 50 vehicles at any one marshaling center? There'd have to be more than that I would think, if you're going to let a person walk in to a store on Wed. at noon, order a blue Elio with manual tranny and cruise control, and get it on Thursday. Yes, no, maybe?

 

[TCBronson]

I can see each retail store having at least two vehicles on display and available for test drives, one manual and one automatic. I can also see them fully loaded to show all the options a person can order. Maybe later having one of each color or a sample of a wrap that he mentions might also be on display.

 

[Ty]

Yeah I hear ya Rick, not to have them sitting at the store, but rather them sitting at the marshaling center.

Is it really possible, that once the stores are open, there's less than say 50 vehicles at any one marshaling center? There'd have to be more than that I would think, if you're going to let a person walk in to a store on Wed. at noon, order a blue Elio with manual tranny and cruise control, and get it on Thursday. Yes, no, maybe?

No. The marshaling centers will, on the low side, have to have 14 vehicles to meet all combinations that could be ordered.

If you really think about it, each marshaling center will have to be able to put together a set number of Elios. There are 8 (counting Shreveport plant as one)
There are 52 weeks, or 312 days (not counting Sundays) where the marshaling centers can perform final assembly.

Each marshaling center will put together up to 31,250 Elios per year which is up to 100 per day. Now, that is making the assumption that EVERY customer wants some kind of option. The amount of work at the marshaling center could be as simple as snapping in a lighted door sill to installing leather seats. (They won't have a problem with the actual assembly work as that work will take about a minute per station and they should be able to roll one vehicle out per minute or so.)

The problem is if a single marshaling center finds itself trying to put together 100 white Elio AMT vehicles, they'd have to make sure they have them. In THAT respect, each center would have to have 100 of each of the 14 varieties (7 colors X 2 transmission choices) of Elios on hand in order to make the next day's deliveries. This is a highly unlikely scenario. It's almost unthinkable that they'd get 100 orders for any single vehicle variety on any given day.

 

[Trusting]

Some thoughts:

If they want to really sell a lot of cars then they need to get some on the road. For every person willing to take a chance and order an Elio sight unseen there are probably 10 who want one but are adopting a wait-n-see attitude. Seeing them running the streets will only generate interest and hence sales. Remember the old saying, "Out of sight, out of mind."... not want Elio wants.

When I finally get my Elio this is what I expect will happen. For the first year I anticipate being constantly approached by people wanting to ask questions about it. If I have time I'll talk to them and if I'm too busy I'll politely refer them to the internet. This will happen to all of us. Now, what Elio Motors needs is for all us owners/drivers to be able to tell people what a great car it is; fun to drive; economical, etc. The worse thing that could happen is if we have to tell them about all the problems we've had and that we would never buy one again. Depending on the way these conversations lean, they will go a long way to deciding if Elio is a success or disaster. Word of mouth is the best advertising.

I would seriously doubt the one day delivery will happen.... just too many things that would have to fall perfectly in place for it to work. Two or three days or even a week would not be a problem for most people. I don't think we should worry too much about it.

These are just my opinions and if you disagree then you're wrong.