Seating For 3

[outsydthebox]

I agree also. With the rear seat removed you've got yourself quite a nice little cross country vehicle that could hold plenty of camping equipment. Ideas of dragging a trailer or a roof mounted baggage pod defeats the whole purpose of the designers striving for a low Cd aerodynamic design. Keep everything inside and you'll achieve your mileage. However there are some who will hack this design then complain they aren't getting the mileage that was advertised.

What I think is so remarkable, is the very broad appeal of the Elio. For some it is perfect just the way it is. For others it will be a "platform" for further changes. Some have said they can't wait to turbo charge it, or drop in a performance engine. IIRC, even EM said it will be an inexpensive & easy platform for EV or hybrid conversions. EM has also said, it will be designed with "towing capacity." Think about it, even towing a "purpose built" trailer, the Elio will get better mileage & be more economical, than ANYTHING on the road today!
I don't think that anyone here, is "really" trying to change the "production" Elio. If they are, they should be in direct contact with EM.
I don't see anything wrong with us "dreaming out loud." I, personally, have been "inspired" by many of the comments made on this forum. Sometimes, what some may think of as "crazy talk", can be the "spark" that leads to REAL innovation.

 

[outsydthebox]

That's pretty much exactly, EXACTLY what I said. How in heck did I miss the point that I MADE? Derderder???! READ the WORDS and stop editorializing in your brains, folks!!!

Snick, I agree with you. (did I just say that?) Your post was misunderstood.

 

[Rickb]

If anybody is old and angry it's me.......with a sense of humor to mellow it out. I think Elio will offer a Gen2 or Gen3 model as a sportier high performance, tilting three wheel 'single' seater......EV. A high performance, 450 MPGe, $16,800 loaded, 5 star safety rated 3 wheel tilter.........a really fun commuter. For now I am extremely happy with Paul Elio's current Model.

 

[Lil4X]

If EM is going to offer a three seater sometime in the mid-distant future, they might consider the "offset" seating of the McLaren F-1 that moved the central driver a few inches ahead of the two passengers, to prevent rubbing elbows in a three-abreast configuration. That third passenger might be seated between the front and rear passenger, offset slightly to the right to ease shoulder room.

Meanwhile, while we "bluesky" a three-up configuration, let's concentrate for now on the 1+1 version commuter. It would stand alone in the marketplace while better (and more economically) serving the real needs of 90% of us.

 

[Danno]

That's pretty much exactly, EXACTLY what I said. How in heck did I miss the point that I MADE? Derderder???! READ the WORDS and stop editorializing in your brains, folks!!!

Switching to ignore mode...push the button Max!

 

[Snick]

Switching to ignore mode...push the button Max!

Cute. I'm ignoring some of the folks who've threatened to hurt me, but I never felt the need to broadcast it. So nice of you to broadcast how thin your skin is.

 

[Dustoff]

Road load calculator

Seeing is believing.

And conversely:

Snick if anyone here threatens you with bodily harm MANY of us would come to your defense. That is simply unacceptable. Now differences of opinion, well that's another matter.

 

[Mark Ambrose]

I pretty much agree with Snick's analysis of the situation.

I don't believe we will ever see three seats in this vehicle as it is intended to serve a very specific purpose as an economical, fuel efficient, commuter vehicle. In this vehicle even the second seat is really a convenience item, which adds the nice touches of more storage and limited passenger capability, as Elio Motors understands that many potential customers would balk at owning a single seat vehicle.

Something along the lines of what Snick wrote in #4 is what I could see happening in the future. After everything with this first model works out well I can foresee Elio Motors adding a second vehicle to their lineup which my guess is most likely to be a larger, more powerful, and much more expensive three wheel vehicle. In this second vehicle they could have the option of a layout as Snick has mentioned in item #2, two people in front and one person in back as from an engineering perspective this makes the most sense for a three seat three wheeled vehicle while keeping total vehicle size to a minimum. To make something like this work, without hurting sales of their first model too much, the second model would have to be quite distinct from the first model and my guess is that it would be performance oriented with a target base price of around $20K which would make it affordable but put it in a completely different market category from the first model.

I seriously doubt there will EVER be a financially successful 3-person vehicle. The practical design requirements would be such that it would probably be cheaper and safer to just build a standard (albeit smaller and lighter) 4 wheel, 4 passenger car. We already have a lot of those in the $11-13K price range.