September 17, 2015 • 39 mins
As Elio pushes its production schedule back yet again, more and more former fans are turning into bitter skeptics. So what's the scoop? Join Scott and Ben as they take a closer look at the future of Elio Motors.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hio mccarthuff.
I'm Scott and I've been as always. We are joined
by our super producer, Noel Shrieve Fort Brown. I thought
you'd like that one bad one, not a bad one,
I guess, so we are no let's see here, no
(00:25):
Knowledin's Brown, right, yeah, taking us there again with the
with the excite right right? Maybe we uh, maybe we
say NOL three wheeler Brown all right. You know, so
if you're putting together the context clues for these last
three nicknames we gave our super producer today, then you
(00:46):
might have an inkling of what we're talking about Scott. Today,
we're doing something a little bit different. We're revisiting something
we had talked about before with some important, if not
entirely positive updates. Yeah. We sometimes do this with higher
technology or maybe sure, um, you know something where we're
(01:06):
talking about maybe like a new type of fuel that
has come out, a new type of engine that's just
being developed, A new type of car, Yeah, a new
type of car, and that's what we're talking about. In
this case. This is an entirely new vehicle. It was
the well, it is the Elio Motors vehicle. I just
think it's called the Elio still at this point, right, okay,
And you and I are gonna have the discussion later
over whether this is a car or an idea. Okay,
(01:28):
all right, we will, we will, and we we did
in the first episode as well. Yeah, the first episode
was back in April of two thousand thirteen. That's two
and a half years ago. A lot has happened in
that two and a half years. And I went back
and listened to that one just this morning before we
came into the studio here, right, And I'll tell you
we were we were talking about it as if it
was gonna happen, almost immediately, like it was gonna happen
(01:50):
right then. But that's what we were being told. That's
what everybody was being told, all the people who were
donating money to Elio at the time. We're told it
will be two thousand thirteen, in two thousand fourteen, and then,
but we, in our defense, we had we had the
most up to date information. It's still the same products.
They're still claiming to make the same vehicle, a two
(02:12):
or three wheel, two seat car that will get eighty
four miles per gallon Scott and cost under seven grands. Yeah,
it seems like a nice package, doesn't. I Mean, that's
that's everything that people have been kind of really really
wanting UM here in the United States for a long time,
really across the world. And there's a lot there's a
lot of stumbling blocks in the way for this vehicle. Now,
(02:32):
we we talked about that, I guess originally we talked
about some of the stumbling points the whole thing, the
production of the vehicle, what it takes to be UM
you know, classified as a as an automobile here in
the United States. Yeah, something that is street legal, something
that meets all of the Yeah, the regulations that we
talked about, you know, the idea that this is actually
a motorcycle that you would have to wear a helmet
(02:55):
inside the car as you drive it technically as of now,
unless they can get that law changed. And there well,
there's a lot of discussion in that initial episode, and
they had decided they were going to buy a facility
in Shreeport, Louisiana, UM an abandoned factory from gen GM
and the old GM factory in Shreveport, which was going
to be their basis of production. And in that previous podcast,
(03:19):
one one thing that you and I continually talked about
hit the surface again, which is how difficult of a
proposition it is to start a car company. How many
people have failed. And I don't think we said this
on air, but I've spent a lot of time, especially
given the recent news that we're about to talk about,
(03:39):
wondering how much Ilio Motors is a Tucker company versus
how much it is a Dale car. Okay, So I
think we both had the impression early on that this
was more of a Tucker company, right. They had a product,
they they had, you know, the means in in place
(03:59):
to produced that product as they do here for the Ilio.
They just don't have the money to do it right now, right,
And they had the what do you call it? They
had the momentum in the public eye, right, and it
seemed like there was a possibility of some federal support,
So it seems right. So it seemed at the time
when we did the original podcast, yes, and that there's
(04:22):
some change on that front as well. So I guess
what we're getting at here, Ben, is is the question
that probably everybody has at this point because it's still
kind of hanging out there. It's still it's still making
the media tour on a smaller scale. There's still a
lot of buzz around this. There's still you know, some
talk about, you know how we need to raise a
little bit more money using this uh, you know, this
effort here, this push. We've got this. This set is
(04:44):
a goal and it's a it's a realistic goal and
they and they get close to that, as we'll find out.
But um, there's also just a lot of people that
were were people were so excited about it, So there's that,
you know behind it. There's still the excitement, but it's
starting to wane a bit, right because the big news
is that very recently Ilio released a statement that they
(05:07):
were pushing back well can we even call it release
a statement? They pushed back production again, and this time
they pushed it back to seen. However, the way it
was message was like a buried lead almost. Yeah. So
so okay, this begins in and then it goes up
to June, and then it was promised um in the
(05:28):
third quarter of which we are approaching right now. And
then now earlier this year they said now now it's
gonna be mid so it's got it's being pushed back,
like you know, years at a time. That's significant when
you've got people that are investing, you know, between anywhere
between one dollars and one thousand dollars, depending on the
level of excitement they have about the product, right, And
(05:50):
technically that's pre reserving a future vehicle. Yeah yeah, right,
not pre reserving well yeah, yeah, there's and there's level
that we talked about. I think we discussed the four
different levels of involvement or that you could have at
this point. And so he's got a lot of people
that have invested in this. We're talking like forty investors
(06:11):
that have invested somewhere between one hundred and one hundred
I'm sorry, one hundred and one thousand dollars. And when
we say he, we mean CEO paul Elio Paulo. And
he's the one that you'll see as kind of the
frontman for the whole company, right, He's the one that
comes out and makes the statements and and you said,
just just recently it was kind of a buried lead
with this, with this recent announcement. Uh yeah. The the
(06:34):
thing is that he is very much a forward facing CEO.
You can see interviews with him on The Motley Fools
and numerous other UH Economics as well as automotive oriented shows. Right,
But it was in an interview with him where he
mentioned the thing, So, Ben, what, what's the problem. What's
(06:56):
the hold up in Elio production at this point? Oh man,
there's a few, there's more than one. But what's what's
what's the main the main hold back of this whole thing.
And I bet people can guess this already in my opinion,
I just in general, in general, I think everybody would
say it's the money. Absolutely, Now, here's the Here's the
big thing is that they are behind. And I'll tell
(07:19):
you a couple of different numbers here because I've seen
several different along the way, and they're changing, Yeah, they're
changing all the time. But as of January of this year,
they were behind. They were they were lacking about two
hundred and forty million dollars. Now that's significant, that's a huge,
huge amount. That's where you need somebody like you know,
like a Bill Gates to step in and say here's
(07:40):
the full amount, produce it. They have to go at
it in a much smaller way and much um. I
guess chip away at that time, and that's what they've
been doing. So they'll have these initiatives where they want
to raise you know, like with the goal of twenty
five million dollars, and they're going to be able to
do that through some new legislation that allows them to
raise or for people to invest other as much as
(08:01):
fifteen thousand dollars at one time in a startup company.
There's a brand new law and well that brand it
was two thousand twelve, I believe is when the law
was around. But um, that allows them to invest in
the fifteen grand into a new startup company. And yeah,
that's a significant thing because that allows them to raise
large chunks of money then by people who really are
(08:22):
on board with this, rather than one thousand dollars here,
five dollars there. That's the way they've been going at
it before. So we're and then they nearly reached the
million dollar goal. They were at like twenty two million,
I think with that one. Well I've I've heard that
over twenty seven million of interest was expressed, which is
an interesting phrase. But okay, so what we're specifically talking
(08:42):
about our new rules made by the sec the securities
and Exchange Commission governing what are called regulation A offerings.
So this allows the person issuing this to gauge market
interest and sort of attest the water situation, right, And
that's how people are able to put in fifteen thous dollars. Again,
(09:04):
ladies and gentlemen, remember the actual car is gonna cost
supposedly around six thousand, eight hundred dollars supposedly. Now we'll
talk about talk about there's I've read some comments on
some of these, you know, like the forums. I guess,
um after the fact, you know, after all these news
items have come out where people kind of debunked the
(09:24):
idea that is even possible. So a lot of people
are kind of saying, open your eyes, people, We've seen
this before with that terror. We've seen this before with
the Dale, We've seen this before with um carbon motors.
Remember the uh, the purpose built police car that was
supposed to be happening not long ago. Um, you know,
it's a great idea. You get a lot of people
(09:45):
behind it, and they say, you know, of course i'll
invest my one thousand dollars to to help you out
to make this. I believe in this, and they just
fall just that short of it, and then all that
money's gone because the investors don't get their money back
at this point. It's invested in you marketing the new
product and buying property, brian equipment, you know, whatever is
necessary at that time. It's usually um eaten up in
(10:07):
the R and D stage of these these programs. So so,
you know, they've got a great drawing of what the
you know, the carbon motors, uh, police vehicles should look like,
but they don't really have a product. And if they
do have a product, it's one it's kind yeah, And
so a lot of people are saying, I've seen this before,
don't be foolish and invest in this, and other people
(10:28):
are saying, no, no no, no, this is the time to
invest because they're this close. You know, there are only
two or forty million away, and it takes well hundreds
and hundreds of millions of dollars in order to start
something like this. So um, So there's the people that
you know are are fully behind this, and there's people
that are not quite on board of this. And then
the people that you know say, no way, I won't
touch this with a ten foot pole, right, yeah, And
(10:52):
I can see both sides of the argument. The truth is, though,
that this continual push back of production makes sense to
me because if you're doing something for the first time,
you don't see like there's so many things you will
not be able to anticipate. But that being said, I
(11:14):
fully understand people's uh irritation with this and the concern
that it may all be a scam. We've had listeners
right in on both sides of the of the church
on that one. Sure we have like I've sent my
one hundred dollar you know, down payment or my my
investment in the company, and you know, I'm happily waiting
for my Elio to arrive, or at least the opportunity
(11:35):
to buy it, and I'll be one of the first
one thousand people or whatever. People saying Ilio is a
scam and that one point eight million square foot plant
and Shreveport is not ever going to build a car.
We've seen, We've seen pretty passionate emails on both sides
of it. But the well, there's another thing too, Ben.
(11:57):
We touched on this already, the engine, and a lot
of people are seeing the engine as a sticking point. Now.
We were pretty hopeful about the engine in our first episode.
We were talking about a a company. We didn't know
who was going to build it, but it was a
company that was going to or supposedly had UM a
decent racing past, the racing history. And they have shown
(12:18):
us a a prototype engine, a point nine leader three
cylinder engine that again, as you said, you know, it's
capable of achieving you know, with the whole package eighty
four miles per gallon in the when it's packaged in
the Elio based on a Geo Metro oddly enough. Yeah,
it's a three cylinder engine. Again, UM one hundred miles
per hour top speed is what they're proposing with this
(12:39):
and a zero to sixty and nine point six seconds.
All that is still the same. They're not saying anything
different about it. It's not going to be a US,
US based company that was UM involved in the designing
of the engine. I don't know if it will be
the one that is building. You know that it might
be US built, but it was not designed by US company.
It was designed by a German company. I a V
(13:01):
and it out of Berlin. Yeah, and it is an
update on the Geometro. It uses a different cylinder block,
cylinder heads, cam cover, front cover, the crankshaft, the camshaft,
the pistons detecting a lot of this stuff has changed. Sure, yeah, sure,
it's so, it's a it's a it's a bit different.
And people are saying, well, why would you ever do that?
(13:23):
Why don't you just stick with a known engine at
this point, you know, form something a partnership with Suzuki
or somebody and get a small engine that is reliable
you know it's gonna work, and that way it takes
that out of the whole equation that you don't have
to develop a brand new engine. Plus what does that
have to do with the price and what what does
that do to the prices and the R and D
(13:44):
like where where do the cost bear out? You know?
Is it in the is it part of the UH
large investments still required? Or is it going to affect
X number of dollars added to the price of each car?
And can I read something from a mentor in one
of these forums that I read, and this is I
believe this comes from um maybe the gizmag article from
(14:08):
around think it was February. One of the commenters that
and this made sense to me when I heard it. Now,
there's gonna be arguments back and forth about this, but um,
this guy says, this is a this is a huge
pile of nonsense, this idea that you know, this is
gonna ever happen. Even he says there's no way it's
gonna come to production. He says, I've been an in
the automotive business for thirty five years and got into
(14:28):
it by way of engineering and racing cars. Bottom line is,
there's no way that this car can be produced and
sold for six thousand, eight hundred dollars. It's impossible by
a factor of three times or more. To prove my point,
take a look at the three wheel can M vehicle,
which is basically a three wheel actual motorcycle. The vehicles
being built and sold by a Canadian company that builds
everything from regional jet aircraft to jet ski watercraft to
(14:51):
snow vehicles and motorcycles. They're very experienced at building small
engines which they produced in very large numbers for low costs.
So we're saying, why not just go with something like that, right?
The can M vehicle which you know we're we're talking
about the cam spider, you know, the the the motorcycle
with three wheels. Um, the canon vehicle, which is much
simpler than the Elio without a c without heat, without
(15:13):
the radio and other amenities, sells for over twenty thou dollars.
So he's saying that's triple the price of the Elio,
you know, which is proposed at six thousand hundred dollars.
But probably that, he says, probably the biggest mistake that
Elio could possibly have made was trying to create their
own engine at this point, you know, that's just a
huge mistake for something. They should just stick with a
(15:36):
known engine builder that can again produce, you know, large numbers,
large quantities of engines at a low cost, at scale,
relatively low cost. Yeah. Well, here's the things got. Originally
they had aimed to use a known engine. They were
going to use just the Geo metro factory engine. No bells,
(15:56):
no whistles, no blue ribbons, you know. But they what
they found was, according to the CEO, they found that
if they did if they used just that engine, they
would get sixty six miles pray gallen. So they updated
it to get that eighty something number. Okay, so it's
an efficiency question at that Well, I guess even more importantly,
(16:17):
the thing is that originally they were aiming to work
with a known quantity. So, I you know, I wonder though,
because I've seen so so many people say that this
is this is a scam, right, but it made me
go back and listen to something that surely was a scam.
Which is a spoiler alert everybody. The Dale car was
(16:39):
a scam. But if you haven't checked out our episode
on that our series, please do it gets weird. It
was an absolute scam. Yeah, that was an absolute scam.
Whereas I don't know if it's fair to call this
a scam so much as it is fair to say
that there are continual blocks. See you and I feel
(17:01):
the same way on this. I believe I think that
the because you mentioned the Tucker earlier, that's a that's
a company that had a product. They have an actual product,
and that's the difference between the Dale and the Tucker
is that they had a product and they had um,
you know, the ability to produce that they just were
looking for, uh, the edge that they needed to be
able to get into production. And there was again a
long story for the Tucker as well, and they were
(17:22):
shut down. You guys, it was a conspiracy. Well, sure,
there's a lot more to it that I'm alluding to
here even, but um, yeah, they have an actual product.
They can they can produce these cars. We've seen the
prototype running, and I know that that is something that
you know that the Dale supposedly showed as well. But
then when you looked at it closer, you realize that
while the prototype doesn't have an engine that was pushed
out on stage or um it was being you know,
(17:44):
the the bumper was four by four that they picked
up hardware store. Um, it's not that way with this vehicle.
This is something that is They've got everything in place.
It seems like it's all ready to go. And maybe
I'm just being fooled then, but I think the comments
is right about the price, though I don't I still
don't understand how you could hit that scale that economic
scales quickly enough to make You would have to make
(18:08):
so many make and sell so many cars at once
to get that price point. I think that's the idea though,
is that they know initially they're gonna be losing money
on on the brand new vehicles that they produce, and
then once they get to a certain point, you'll take
years and years, but they will start making money at
that point, and you know, if the interest is there,
why not go forward with this? Why not try it?
(18:28):
But I mean, at least this guy is trying something.
I think that's that's good. That's uh, that's something that
we can you know, applaud him for that, you know,
Paul Elio to say, this guy's got a great idea,
and we need people like this in the world, people
that do stuff like this because otherwise there's never gonna
be any change. But is he going about it the
right way? I I don't know, Because we talked about
(18:49):
federal funding. There's it seems like there's just no hope
for federal funding and this at this point, no no,
And and that would be the you know, the uh,
the silver bullet, I guess it would. It would answer
all the questions. It would just be like, Okay, we're
ready to go, let's do it. I've got I've got
the facility, i got the machining, i got the product,
I got the interest in it with you know, these
forty initial investors and who knows how many more that
just don't want to jump on right now because they're cautious.
(19:12):
But once people see them on the showroom, floor and
the dealer lots um. You know, there's probably gonna be
quite a bit of interest in this thing if it
ever happened. Well, here's something interesting, Scott, and this came
out just a few days ago. There was Elio Motors
appeared at the eighth Annual National Clean Energy Summit, which
is held oddly enough in Vegas. And uh, I'm kidding.
(19:37):
So the you know, they have over forty they have
almost forty five thousand reservations of the Eleo motor cars. Uh.
The President of the United States, Barack Obama, was the
keynote speaker. And Uh, it's it's strange that, uh, they're
(19:58):
going to the same parties literally, but where is the
federal funding because at this point, barring some other private
angel investor, as you said, you know, a buffet or
gates or something, then it's it's a heck of a
speed bump. It's a heck of a hurdle to have
to get across. Uh. And you and I have seen
(20:21):
some news that we were talking about off air. That
is another big update we should talk about concerning the factory. Yes, Ben,
you're right, there's a report very recently. We're talking like
July of this year, so so not long ago that
stated that Elio may be losing their factory, their position,
They may be losing their their their place to build
these vehicles. And that's a that's a very concerning note
(20:43):
from from you know, the media. When all these investors
are into it for you know, a thousand dollars each
or some up to fifteen thousand dollars. People have invested
millions of dollars, you know, cumulative. At this point, where
is all that money going to go if if they're
they don't have a factory to build anything. So people are,
you know, the investors are are really concerned at this point.
But but is it true? Is it true that they're
(21:04):
gonna lose their factory? And to who not it's not
entirely true, but they it looks like they will lose
part of the factory in some ways, perhaps due to
uh politicking, the fine art of politics. So yes, So
this outfit named the Gulf Coast Spinning Company a textile plant.
The textile mill is going to use some space within
(21:27):
the factory, not the entire plant. See that was the
initial report was that it was going to use the
entire plant, and it was it was that Elia was
losing the factory and that's not true. Well so, uh
the CEO of Gulf Coast Spinning's parent company, an outfit
called Zagas USA, is a guy named Dan Phoebus dan Fibus,
(21:49):
and he said that they're definitely they're looking for this
Stree Report location. It's all but done right now. Elio
Motors itself rents approximately one point five million square feet
of the plants, which I believe is uh uh a
(22:10):
actually a four point one million square foot building. So
they knew that they weren't going to be the only
occupant of that building when they when they bought that
one point five million square feet, which is I mean,
they were talking about huge, huge numbers. These are significant buildings.
I mean, it's a it's a giant, giant factory. So
you know, it's not unheard of for for space to
be shared among some of these even big companies. Now
(22:32):
hopefully I'm sure that Eliot is thinking later we can
expand if we need more space, you know. But in
two thousand thirteen, Scott also the company said that they
would be bringing fift dred jobs to Shreveport with this
see now that's by the end that's that's the other
thing as this becomes maybe a little bit of a
political move from the governor of Louisiana because um Bobby Jindal,
(22:56):
who is the governor, is a presidential hopeful, so he
needs to kind of like a positive spin on the
job story in that area in order to boost his
image as a job creator. And by getting them into
this plant, you know that by the what's the name
of the group, Zegas group of the spinning company, this
is something that he can point to to say, yeah,
(23:18):
I've I've created fifteen hundred new jobs or two thousand
new jobs in my area in this area, and uh,
you know, go me, I guess. And you know the
other side of the coin, though, is that he's been
promising that you know, Elio Motors with with Paul Elio
Is is going to um also produce you know, fifteen
hundred jobs. But that's been kind of put off and
(23:38):
put off and put off, and that's given him kind
of a little bit of a bad rep because he's
also got his weight behind us and saying, yeah, this
is something that's going to happen, and then then every
time there's a delay, everybody kind of looks to him
and to Paul, Elio says, what's going on? So he
like invested his reputation as exactly right, And you know,
I guess rightfully. So, I mean, you've got you've got
big hopes that this is really gonna work. Can it
(24:00):
just hasn't to this point. But the P four. I
can't believe we've got this far without saying that that's
the name of the newest prototype, the four. I didn't
even know that. Yeah, it, uh, it looks pretty cool,
you know. I don't agree with the color they chose.
You don't like the orange because we see the orange
in every every emotional stuff. Yeah, that's what they take around. Yeah,
(24:20):
but it does look refined, doesn't it. It looks like
a cool vehicle. I would love to I would love
to take one for a ride. The uh. The issue now, though,
is will this spell the end of Elio? Will Elio
be able to get the money it needs, because that's
the primary thing. Sure, yeah, are we talking? I mean,
who knows if we're talking thirty million or two d
(24:43):
forty million or something in between. But it's a significant
amount of money that they still need. They've got a product,
they've got the place They've got all that stuff in
in position. They just need this massive influx of money
in order to make it all work. And you know,
even then, I guess once they reached that point, are
we are we going to see the Elio? Is it
gonna happen? Well, I want to say that. I want
(25:06):
to say a couple other points here, so earlier this summer. Listeners,
some of you may be familiar with the website called
Reddit R E, D, D I T. Where you can
just learn a bunch of news, people find other stuff
they like on the internet. They posted to Reddit. That's
basically how it works. They also have these interviews with people,
(25:27):
right and they have one uh they're called Ask Me
Anything or a m as. They had an A M
A with Paul Elio in July and uh he said
he was asked, um, what about potential customers being frustrated
or discouraged by repeated delays? And I'd like to read
his quote here, fair question. He wrote, the primary cause
(25:50):
of delay in Elio Motor's project is surrounding funding, particularly
this round, because projects like Elio don't come along very often.
They're not established pools of money that invests in these
products in hindsight, he says, I could have probably chosen
better paths over the last year. We're now on our way.
So I I think that's a that's a pretty fair point,
(26:12):
and I wanted to make sure we got that on
the air, because he's right, there aren't really established pools
of money for people starting a three wheeled car, debatably
motorcycle company from scratch. And this is exactly the problem
that ap Tera faced as well, uh, you know, recently.
So it's something that we can all look to in
the past and see see exactly what happened. You can
(26:34):
you can see the entire case, you know, from beginning
to end in that one. Um, so hopefully this one
will have a better ending point than a Tera did.
But yeah, I don't know. I really do like the
design of this. I think it's a neat little car.
I mean it's definitely it seems almost like a third
car like this is, or actually this is the car
that would be your primary daily driver. I suppose, you know,
(26:54):
like a commuter type car. I guess you can call
it a third I don't know where where would this
fit in the depends on where you live, man. Yeah,
so so, but it's an interesting idea and interesting design.
And the latest one, the P four. I didn't know
I was looking at what they call the P four.
But the interior, the exterior, everything is very much refined
from the last version I saw when we talked about this,
(27:15):
it was very rough. It was very um like molded
plastic that had just come out of the out of
the press. Whereas this thing looks nice. It looks like
a professional job, you know, it really does. It's a
good looking vehicle, I think. Also during January meeting in
ken Epperson's district, Paul Elio said he was still working
(27:36):
on obtaining private investors, and he'd also applied for a
hundred and eighty five million dollar U S Department of
Energies Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan and to date that
has provided nothing. But but if it does happen, that
means this car will be produced. I really believe that.
I mean, all those bad news that we keep hearing
(27:56):
about it, you know, it's chipping away at the reputation
of Elio. I think, get it definitely hurts them, but
it seems like they're they're maintaining the course. They're saying no, no,
that's not bad news, and here's why. And they, you know,
the PR person or Paul Elio himself will come out
and say, no, no, that's that's not the case. And
here's the here's the way it really is. Now again,
we're on the side of having to We're in the
(28:17):
in the position, I guess, of having to hear both
sides of this, because we absinitely hear these bad things
coming out about it. And are people still wanting to
throw a thousand dollars at it, you know individually, I
don't know. I mean we got some you know, we
had some emails and uh some some tweets I believe,
messages from listeners about Elio and some some so many
(28:39):
folks made no qualms or made no bones about it,
said Elio is a scam. Better off throwing your money
into the wind and hoping two d dollars blows back
at you or something I can't like. I can't remember,
but it was. It was pretty witty, and uh, you
know that we had other people saying like, well, this
is this kind of hampered progress or hindered progress occurs
(29:03):
whenever you do stuff like this. And while I can
see both sides of it, I think The most informative
answer that I can give on my position, probably yours too,
and yours as well know, is that none of us
have put in hundred dollars, five hundred dollars, thousand dollars,
(29:28):
not you, not me. Yeah, I want I wonder how
many of our listeners really have done that, and if
we had, what position would they be in at this point?
But then again, I mean, look at the numbers. Ben
even if you know, okay, so that we we said
that they've got about forty thou current investors, you know,
people that have put between. But if they had all
put in one thousand dollars the maximum amount, we're still
(29:50):
talking about only forty million dollars at that point. So
we know that they haven't done that. Some people are
in for five hundreds, some people in for two hundreds,
or for all all different levels. But if they had
all done one thousand dollars, we're talking about forty million dollars.
And you can see how these numbers just don't quite
work out. If he if he doubles the amount of
investors to eight and they all put in another you know,
(30:14):
one thousand, the additional people put in one thousand dollars
towards it, you're still only gaining another forty thousand, and
that's just barely chipping away at forty million. I'm sorry,
you're still just chipping away at the amount that's really
do which is two hundred million or is it a
hundred thirty or whatever? But what about this? Though? They
also opened up a clothing line. They're selling T shirts.
(30:34):
They're selling t shirt also selling and there's a true
story unused machinery from the plant about that. Now, that's
a good idea. I agree with that. Now you've got
this facility that has some some very very expensive, large
machine to get very very specialized, and there's going to
be people interested in that. They're selling that stuff on
eBay as a matter of fact, which is crazy, but
(30:55):
they're doing that. But the clothing thing, how many hats
do you think you have to sell to get one
and thirty million dollars? Or how many key chains that
say elio or you know, or a upper sticker that
says I believe or whatever? Um. You know, it's it's
tough to to do something like that, um on a
scale that actually makes a difference. I mean, that might
keep keep the lights on in the factory for another
(31:17):
month or two. But that's about it. Yeah, well, okay,
I am an optimistic person. Hope springs eternal forever, right,
But it is it is true that this is a
very tough case. And while I don't think it's the
end of Elio yet, it is a crucial time for
(31:40):
the company. And the thing is they're so close. I mean,
as we said, with the product and everything. They've got
this ready to go. And I think people, I really
do think people want a car like this. I think
people will buy a car like this, right, and I
think there's a market for it. I think. But once
you see it in person and and get a chance
or a feel for what this really is, as long
as it doesn't show up and it's like all rickety
(32:01):
and cheap, you know, once we actually get our hands
on it, right that you know, you drive it and
it's like it's a rattle trap and you know it's
it's loud, and it doesn't it doesn't meet the eighty
four miles per gallon or whatever. As long as none
of that happens, you know, some really bad press. Once
they start building them, If they build them, I think
it's going to do well, but we've got to just
get or they've got to just get over that last bump,
(32:23):
and that last bump is a two million dollar bump. Well,
if the if the company raises UM, I've got I've
got an article, uh from very recently quoting that the
company needs to make two d and twenty five million
to be able to start production. However, you and I
both know that number varies widely because a lot of
(32:44):
it is speculation. Well, we've said seven or eight numbers
in this podcast, right, right, But but also journalists are
approaching the FEDS about the status of that loan application,
and the FEDS aren't talking. Don selak Uh, spokesman spokesman
with the Department of Energy, wouldn't tell anybody how long
the steps would take or comment on the application. These
(33:06):
loans have three steps. So the first is UH that
you have qualified to be considered for the loan. The
second step is Uncle Sam looking at everything, every single thing,
and if you make it past there, then the third
is just the details. So the second is like the
big audit. The second is the big one. I would
(33:27):
be willing to bet that they're in this big audit
phase at this point, trying to figure out if they're
good for the five million plus interest to be paid back. Yeah,
that's probably why they can't really talk about it. Yeah,
I'm sure that's the case. But um, and you know,
I guess you could also go the other route and say, like, well,
they're just trying to squash this, they're trying to make
it not happen, right, or the the rest of the
(33:48):
auto industry is saying, maybe you know, since you're also
in our pocket or we're in your pocket or both, Um,
you know that maybe maybe this isn't the vehicle for
us right now, maybe we should you should just kind
of neglect that one for a little while. Um do
you think I have to ask you this? Because we've
talked about it before, it's not necessarily related, But Scott,
(34:11):
I want to ask you, and uh listeners ask you
as well, how much influence would you say the Big
Three have over up starts in the auto industry and
federal regulation. That's tough because I mean, I guess it's
just something you have to just think about for a
long time because it can't answer it with one one liner.
(34:32):
You can't answer it, and with what we've got left
in this podcast, I don't think, But but do you
think that there was an effort to again squash what
what what Ellen Musk is doing with with Tesla? I know,
well we did a podcast on the dealership stuff. I
think it was one of the mystery shows. And we
(34:53):
know that lobbies for dealerships are or associations, trade associations
and such are assiduously working against Tesla's proposed sales model.
And that's part of what allows him to continue production
is that you know, this this new sales method or
not really new, but this this sales method direct sales,
so let's just call it. It saves the company million,
(35:16):
hundreds of millions of dollars. Probably they're having to open
dealerships nationwide to sell his products. Yeah, and I don't
think that's a coincidence. Yeah, I see. And then there's
also we should also say that for more info on that,
you can refer to this mystery show number two or
something before we number them. Okay, yeah, so maybe, but
(35:36):
it's one of Ben's. It's the one where I sound
kind of smug because I'm the one who knows what's happening. Yeah,
So I wonder, I wonder how much of an effort
there is behind that, you know, with with other startups
as well, maybe something that we don't even really hear of.
I mean, just yeah, the smaller operations that that are
starting to emerge, and then it's quickly put away. And really,
what what would be in the interest of if if
(36:00):
something like that existed, which I'm sure versions of it
have existed in the past. Uh, if if there were
some kind of uh conspiratorial stuff going and foots, then
what like, at what point is it worth it because
it's got to be expensive to try to move the
wheels of Congress. Well, this all goes back to the
Tucker story to it. It does, which I believe was
(36:23):
you know, we both do. I believe it was a
stitch up man, and I think they took him down
and we both do, and I think that I think
it was proven later, you know, after it was it
was not a threat anymore. Right, Yeah, So all right, Well, man,
I think we've maybe given you kind of the latest
on the Elio and where that all stands, and hopefully
we haven't missed any important or crucial points here along
(36:45):
the way, because there's there's seems like there's always a
little something popping up in the news about this in
the last well what eight or nine months even, right,
and there's going to be some more. We can expect
a flurry of news in the coming months as we
approach what would have been the production date and as
(37:05):
we get towards the new one. I will say that,
although I have not invested any money in Elio, I
am hopeful that the that the cars or the vehicles
actually come to production, will they won't they? What do
you think? Let us know? Absolutely? Yeah, I think I
(37:26):
think that we need to uh maybe even do a
third episode where we find out what happens with us
a loan or you know, whether they make it or not,
and if they're go into production, for sure, we're going
to do another episode on this. Yeah. Look, I'd love
to be wrong about my skepticism, Scott. I would love
to show up in person at an Elio dealership, shake
the hand of whomever selling it and say, hey, I
(37:46):
was wrong, I'm glad you made it. I'm glad you
made it, and and that will all be sincere. But
I I think that they have that that the next
two months are going to be crucial and they will
say who is that guy in the purple suit that
was the strangest thing and walked out. Yeah, I gotta
have a disguise on, right, Yeah, something cool. They'll be like,
(38:07):
who wears a monocle? And and I patch. Alright, folks,
we're gonna get out of here. We're gonna mosey on
down the way. We hope that you enjoyed this episode.
We'd like to hear from you on Facebook and Twitter,
where we are car Stuff hs W. Feel free to
like our page to follow us on Twitter. Uh, every
little like, every little follow makes us our bosses like
(38:29):
us that much more. We have a website where you
can hear all this podcasts we talked about earlier. That
website is car Stuff show dot com and if you
want to email us directly, we'd love to hear from you.
And also side note, thanks for everybody sending limericks. It
was weird that, you know what, We've got so many
limericks right now that I don't even know if we
can begin to read them on air, it would it
would cover more than an episode. It might cover more
(38:51):
than an episode. Very clever. By the way, all of
them seem to be really really good. I mean, and
the rhymes are really working out, and yeah, some are
going off scripted it, you know, with clever, Yeah, with
with different rhyming patterns and things again, very clever. Yeah,
I'm excited about the stuff we've got already. Yeah, I've
got of my limerick writing game in the interim. But
(39:11):
please do send that to us. We'd love to hear
what you think about ilio. Have you donated money to it?
Do you think it's utter bunk? Either way, let us know,
and do so by writing to us at our email address,
which is car stuff at how stuff work dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics is
(39:32):
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think,
send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
M
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hio mccarthuff.
I'm Scott and I've been as always. We are joined
by our super producer, Noel Shrieve Fort Brown. I thought
you'd like that one bad one, not a bad one,
I guess, so we are no let's see here, no
(00:25):
Knowledin's Brown, right, yeah, taking us there again with the
with the excite right right? Maybe we uh, maybe we
say NOL three wheeler Brown all right. You know, so
if you're putting together the context clues for these last
three nicknames we gave our super producer today, then you
(00:46):
might have an inkling of what we're talking about Scott. Today,
we're doing something a little bit different. We're revisiting something
we had talked about before with some important, if not
entirely positive updates. Yeah. We sometimes do this with higher
technology or maybe sure, um, you know something where we're
(01:06):
talking about maybe like a new type of fuel that
has come out, a new type of engine that's just
being developed, A new type of car, Yeah, a new
type of car, and that's what we're talking about. In
this case. This is an entirely new vehicle. It was
the well, it is the Elio Motors vehicle. I just
think it's called the Elio still at this point, right, okay,
And you and I are gonna have the discussion later
over whether this is a car or an idea. Okay,
(01:28):
all right, we will, we will, and we we did
in the first episode as well. Yeah, the first episode
was back in April of two thousand thirteen. That's two
and a half years ago. A lot has happened in
that two and a half years. And I went back
and listened to that one just this morning before we
came into the studio here, right, And I'll tell you
we were we were talking about it as if it
was gonna happen, almost immediately, like it was gonna happen
(01:50):
right then. But that's what we were being told. That's
what everybody was being told, all the people who were
donating money to Elio at the time. We're told it
will be two thousand thirteen, in two thousand fourteen, and then,
but we, in our defense, we had we had the
most up to date information. It's still the same products.
They're still claiming to make the same vehicle, a two
(02:12):
or three wheel, two seat car that will get eighty
four miles per gallon Scott and cost under seven grands. Yeah,
it seems like a nice package, doesn't. I Mean, that's
that's everything that people have been kind of really really
wanting UM here in the United States for a long time,
really across the world. And there's a lot there's a
lot of stumbling blocks in the way for this vehicle. Now,
(02:32):
we we talked about that, I guess originally we talked
about some of the stumbling points the whole thing, the
production of the vehicle, what it takes to be UM
you know, classified as a as an automobile here in
the United States. Yeah, something that is street legal, something
that meets all of the Yeah, the regulations that we
talked about, you know, the idea that this is actually
a motorcycle that you would have to wear a helmet
(02:55):
inside the car as you drive it technically as of now,
unless they can get that law changed. And there well,
there's a lot of discussion in that initial episode, and
they had decided they were going to buy a facility
in Shreeport, Louisiana, UM an abandoned factory from gen GM
and the old GM factory in Shreveport, which was going
to be their basis of production. And in that previous podcast,
(03:19):
one one thing that you and I continually talked about
hit the surface again, which is how difficult of a
proposition it is to start a car company. How many
people have failed. And I don't think we said this
on air, but I've spent a lot of time, especially
given the recent news that we're about to talk about,
(03:39):
wondering how much Ilio Motors is a Tucker company versus
how much it is a Dale car. Okay, So I
think we both had the impression early on that this
was more of a Tucker company, right. They had a product,
they they had, you know, the means in in place
(03:59):
to produced that product as they do here for the Ilio.
They just don't have the money to do it right now, right,
And they had the what do you call it? They
had the momentum in the public eye, right, and it
seemed like there was a possibility of some federal support,
So it seems right. So it seemed at the time
when we did the original podcast, yes, and that there's
(04:22):
some change on that front as well. So I guess
what we're getting at here, Ben, is is the question
that probably everybody has at this point because it's still
kind of hanging out there. It's still it's still making
the media tour on a smaller scale. There's still a
lot of buzz around this. There's still you know, some
talk about, you know how we need to raise a
little bit more money using this uh, you know, this
effort here, this push. We've got this. This set is
(04:44):
a goal and it's a it's a realistic goal and
they and they get close to that, as we'll find out.
But um, there's also just a lot of people that
were were people were so excited about it, So there's that,
you know behind it. There's still the excitement, but it's
starting to wane a bit, right because the big news
is that very recently Ilio released a statement that they
(05:07):
were pushing back well can we even call it release
a statement? They pushed back production again, and this time
they pushed it back to seen. However, the way it
was message was like a buried lead almost. Yeah. So
so okay, this begins in and then it goes up
to June, and then it was promised um in the
(05:28):
third quarter of which we are approaching right now. And
then now earlier this year they said now now it's
gonna be mid so it's got it's being pushed back,
like you know, years at a time. That's significant when
you've got people that are investing, you know, between anywhere
between one dollars and one thousand dollars, depending on the
level of excitement they have about the product, right, And
(05:50):
technically that's pre reserving a future vehicle. Yeah yeah, right,
not pre reserving well yeah, yeah, there's and there's level
that we talked about. I think we discussed the four
different levels of involvement or that you could have at
this point. And so he's got a lot of people
that have invested in this. We're talking like forty investors
(06:11):
that have invested somewhere between one hundred and one hundred
I'm sorry, one hundred and one thousand dollars. And when
we say he, we mean CEO paul Elio Paulo. And
he's the one that you'll see as kind of the
frontman for the whole company, right, He's the one that
comes out and makes the statements and and you said,
just just recently it was kind of a buried lead
with this, with this recent announcement. Uh yeah. The the
(06:34):
thing is that he is very much a forward facing CEO.
You can see interviews with him on The Motley Fools
and numerous other UH Economics as well as automotive oriented shows. Right,
But it was in an interview with him where he
mentioned the thing, So, Ben, what, what's the problem. What's
(06:56):
the hold up in Elio production at this point? Oh man,
there's a few, there's more than one. But what's what's
what's the main the main hold back of this whole thing.
And I bet people can guess this already in my opinion,
I just in general, in general, I think everybody would
say it's the money. Absolutely, Now, here's the Here's the
big thing is that they are behind. And I'll tell
(07:19):
you a couple of different numbers here because I've seen
several different along the way, and they're changing, Yeah, they're
changing all the time. But as of January of this year,
they were behind. They were they were lacking about two
hundred and forty million dollars. Now that's significant, that's a huge,
huge amount. That's where you need somebody like you know,
like a Bill Gates to step in and say here's
(07:40):
the full amount, produce it. They have to go at
it in a much smaller way and much um. I
guess chip away at that time, and that's what they've
been doing. So they'll have these initiatives where they want
to raise you know, like with the goal of twenty
five million dollars, and they're going to be able to
do that through some new legislation that allows them to
raise or for people to invest other as much as
(08:01):
fifteen thousand dollars at one time in a startup company.
There's a brand new law and well that brand it
was two thousand twelve, I believe is when the law
was around. But um, that allows them to invest in
the fifteen grand into a new startup company. And yeah,
that's a significant thing because that allows them to raise
large chunks of money then by people who really are
(08:22):
on board with this, rather than one thousand dollars here,
five dollars there. That's the way they've been going at
it before. So we're and then they nearly reached the
million dollar goal. They were at like twenty two million,
I think with that one. Well I've I've heard that
over twenty seven million of interest was expressed, which is
an interesting phrase. But okay, so what we're specifically talking
(08:42):
about our new rules made by the sec the securities
and Exchange Commission governing what are called regulation A offerings.
So this allows the person issuing this to gauge market
interest and sort of attest the water situation, right, And
that's how people are able to put in fifteen thous dollars. Again,
(09:04):
ladies and gentlemen, remember the actual car is gonna cost
supposedly around six thousand, eight hundred dollars supposedly. Now we'll
talk about talk about there's I've read some comments on
some of these, you know, like the forums. I guess,
um after the fact, you know, after all these news
items have come out where people kind of debunked the
(09:24):
idea that is even possible. So a lot of people
are kind of saying, open your eyes, people, We've seen
this before with that terror. We've seen this before with
the Dale, We've seen this before with um carbon motors.
Remember the uh, the purpose built police car that was
supposed to be happening not long ago. Um, you know,
it's a great idea. You get a lot of people
(09:45):
behind it, and they say, you know, of course i'll
invest my one thousand dollars to to help you out
to make this. I believe in this, and they just
fall just that short of it, and then all that
money's gone because the investors don't get their money back
at this point. It's invested in you marketing the new
product and buying property, brian equipment, you know, whatever is
necessary at that time. It's usually um eaten up in
(10:07):
the R and D stage of these these programs. So so,
you know, they've got a great drawing of what the
you know, the carbon motors, uh, police vehicles should look like,
but they don't really have a product. And if they
do have a product, it's one it's kind yeah, And
so a lot of people are saying, I've seen this before,
don't be foolish and invest in this, and other people
(10:28):
are saying, no, no no, no, this is the time to
invest because they're this close. You know, there are only
two or forty million away, and it takes well hundreds
and hundreds of millions of dollars in order to start
something like this. So um, So there's the people that
you know are are fully behind this, and there's people
that are not quite on board of this. And then
the people that you know say, no way, I won't
touch this with a ten foot pole, right, yeah, And
(10:52):
I can see both sides of the argument. The truth is, though,
that this continual push back of production makes sense to
me because if you're doing something for the first time,
you don't see like there's so many things you will
not be able to anticipate. But that being said, I
(11:14):
fully understand people's uh irritation with this and the concern
that it may all be a scam. We've had listeners
right in on both sides of the of the church
on that one. Sure we have like I've sent my
one hundred dollar you know, down payment or my my
investment in the company, and you know, I'm happily waiting
for my Elio to arrive, or at least the opportunity
(11:35):
to buy it, and I'll be one of the first
one thousand people or whatever. People saying Ilio is a
scam and that one point eight million square foot plant
and Shreveport is not ever going to build a car.
We've seen, We've seen pretty passionate emails on both sides
of it. But the well, there's another thing too, Ben.
(11:57):
We touched on this already, the engine, and a lot
of people are seeing the engine as a sticking point. Now.
We were pretty hopeful about the engine in our first episode.
We were talking about a a company. We didn't know
who was going to build it, but it was a
company that was going to or supposedly had UM a
decent racing past, the racing history. And they have shown
(12:18):
us a a prototype engine, a point nine leader three
cylinder engine that again, as you said, you know, it's
capable of achieving you know, with the whole package eighty
four miles per gallon in the when it's packaged in
the Elio based on a Geo Metro oddly enough. Yeah,
it's a three cylinder engine. Again, UM one hundred miles
per hour top speed is what they're proposing with this
(12:39):
and a zero to sixty and nine point six seconds.
All that is still the same. They're not saying anything
different about it. It's not going to be a US,
US based company that was UM involved in the designing
of the engine. I don't know if it will be
the one that is building. You know that it might
be US built, but it was not designed by US company.
It was designed by a German company. I a V
(13:01):
and it out of Berlin. Yeah, and it is an
update on the Geometro. It uses a different cylinder block,
cylinder heads, cam cover, front cover, the crankshaft, the camshaft,
the pistons detecting a lot of this stuff has changed. Sure, yeah, sure,
it's so, it's a it's a it's a bit different.
And people are saying, well, why would you ever do that?
(13:23):
Why don't you just stick with a known engine at
this point, you know, form something a partnership with Suzuki
or somebody and get a small engine that is reliable
you know it's gonna work, and that way it takes
that out of the whole equation that you don't have
to develop a brand new engine. Plus what does that
have to do with the price and what what does
that do to the prices and the R and D
(13:44):
like where where do the cost bear out? You know?
Is it in the is it part of the UH
large investments still required? Or is it going to affect
X number of dollars added to the price of each car?
And can I read something from a mentor in one
of these forums that I read, and this is I
believe this comes from um maybe the gizmag article from
(14:08):
around think it was February. One of the commenters that
and this made sense to me when I heard it. Now,
there's gonna be arguments back and forth about this, but um,
this guy says, this is a this is a huge
pile of nonsense, this idea that you know, this is
gonna ever happen. Even he says there's no way it's
gonna come to production. He says, I've been an in
the automotive business for thirty five years and got into
(14:28):
it by way of engineering and racing cars. Bottom line is,
there's no way that this car can be produced and
sold for six thousand, eight hundred dollars. It's impossible by
a factor of three times or more. To prove my point,
take a look at the three wheel can M vehicle,
which is basically a three wheel actual motorcycle. The vehicles
being built and sold by a Canadian company that builds
everything from regional jet aircraft to jet ski watercraft to
(14:51):
snow vehicles and motorcycles. They're very experienced at building small
engines which they produced in very large numbers for low costs.
So we're saying, why not just go with something like that, right?
The can M vehicle which you know we're we're talking
about the cam spider, you know, the the the motorcycle
with three wheels. Um, the canon vehicle, which is much
simpler than the Elio without a c without heat, without
(15:13):
the radio and other amenities, sells for over twenty thou dollars.
So he's saying that's triple the price of the Elio,
you know, which is proposed at six thousand hundred dollars.
But probably that, he says, probably the biggest mistake that
Elio could possibly have made was trying to create their
own engine at this point, you know, that's just a
huge mistake for something. They should just stick with a
(15:36):
known engine builder that can again produce, you know, large numbers,
large quantities of engines at a low cost, at scale,
relatively low cost. Yeah. Well, here's the things got. Originally
they had aimed to use a known engine. They were
going to use just the Geo metro factory engine. No bells,
(15:56):
no whistles, no blue ribbons, you know. But they what
they found was, according to the CEO, they found that
if they did if they used just that engine, they
would get sixty six miles pray gallen. So they updated
it to get that eighty something number. Okay, so it's
an efficiency question at that Well, I guess even more importantly,
(16:17):
the thing is that originally they were aiming to work
with a known quantity. So, I you know, I wonder though,
because I've seen so so many people say that this
is this is a scam, right, but it made me
go back and listen to something that surely was a scam.
Which is a spoiler alert everybody. The Dale car was
(16:39):
a scam. But if you haven't checked out our episode
on that our series, please do it gets weird. It
was an absolute scam. Yeah, that was an absolute scam.
Whereas I don't know if it's fair to call this
a scam so much as it is fair to say
that there are continual blocks. See you and I feel
(17:01):
the same way on this. I believe I think that
the because you mentioned the Tucker earlier, that's a that's
a company that had a product. They have an actual product,
and that's the difference between the Dale and the Tucker
is that they had a product and they had um,
you know, the ability to produce that they just were
looking for, uh, the edge that they needed to be
able to get into production. And there was again a
long story for the Tucker as well, and they were
(17:22):
shut down. You guys, it was a conspiracy. Well, sure,
there's a lot more to it that I'm alluding to
here even, but um, yeah, they have an actual product.
They can they can produce these cars. We've seen the
prototype running, and I know that that is something that
you know that the Dale supposedly showed as well. But
then when you looked at it closer, you realize that
while the prototype doesn't have an engine that was pushed
out on stage or um it was being you know,
(17:44):
the the bumper was four by four that they picked
up hardware store. Um, it's not that way with this vehicle.
This is something that is They've got everything in place.
It seems like it's all ready to go. And maybe
I'm just being fooled then, but I think the comments
is right about the price, though I don't I still
don't understand how you could hit that scale that economic
scales quickly enough to make You would have to make
(18:08):
so many make and sell so many cars at once
to get that price point. I think that's the idea though,
is that they know initially they're gonna be losing money
on on the brand new vehicles that they produce, and
then once they get to a certain point, you'll take
years and years, but they will start making money at
that point, and you know, if the interest is there,
why not go forward with this? Why not try it?
(18:28):
But I mean, at least this guy is trying something.
I think that's that's good. That's uh, that's something that
we can you know, applaud him for that, you know,
Paul Elio to say, this guy's got a great idea,
and we need people like this in the world, people
that do stuff like this because otherwise there's never gonna
be any change. But is he going about it the
right way? I I don't know, Because we talked about
(18:49):
federal funding. There's it seems like there's just no hope
for federal funding and this at this point, no no,
And and that would be the you know, the uh,
the silver bullet, I guess it would. It would answer
all the questions. It would just be like, Okay, we're
ready to go, let's do it. I've got I've got
the facility, i got the machining, i got the product,
I got the interest in it with you know, these
forty initial investors and who knows how many more that
just don't want to jump on right now because they're cautious.
(19:12):
But once people see them on the showroom, floor and
the dealer lots um. You know, there's probably gonna be
quite a bit of interest in this thing if it
ever happened. Well, here's something interesting, Scott, and this came
out just a few days ago. There was Elio Motors
appeared at the eighth Annual National Clean Energy Summit, which
is held oddly enough in Vegas. And uh, I'm kidding.
(19:37):
So the you know, they have over forty they have
almost forty five thousand reservations of the Eleo motor cars. Uh.
The President of the United States, Barack Obama, was the
keynote speaker. And Uh, it's it's strange that, uh, they're
(19:58):
going to the same parties literally, but where is the
federal funding because at this point, barring some other private
angel investor, as you said, you know, a buffet or
gates or something, then it's it's a heck of a
speed bump. It's a heck of a hurdle to have
to get across. Uh. And you and I have seen
(20:21):
some news that we were talking about off air. That
is another big update we should talk about concerning the factory. Yes, Ben,
you're right, there's a report very recently. We're talking like
July of this year, so so not long ago that
stated that Elio may be losing their factory, their position,
They may be losing their their their place to build
these vehicles. And that's a that's a very concerning note
(20:43):
from from you know, the media. When all these investors
are into it for you know, a thousand dollars each
or some up to fifteen thousand dollars. People have invested
millions of dollars, you know, cumulative. At this point, where
is all that money going to go if if they're
they don't have a factory to build anything. So people are,
you know, the investors are are really concerned at this point.
But but is it true? Is it true that they're
(21:04):
gonna lose their factory? And to who not it's not
entirely true, but they it looks like they will lose
part of the factory in some ways, perhaps due to
uh politicking, the fine art of politics. So yes, So
this outfit named the Gulf Coast Spinning Company a textile plant.
The textile mill is going to use some space within
(21:27):
the factory, not the entire plant. See that was the
initial report was that it was going to use the
entire plant, and it was it was that Elia was
losing the factory and that's not true. Well so, uh
the CEO of Gulf Coast Spinning's parent company, an outfit
called Zagas USA, is a guy named Dan Phoebus dan Fibus,
(21:49):
and he said that they're definitely they're looking for this
Stree Report location. It's all but done right now. Elio
Motors itself rents approximately one point five million square feet
of the plants, which I believe is uh uh a
(22:10):
actually a four point one million square foot building. So
they knew that they weren't going to be the only
occupant of that building when they when they bought that
one point five million square feet, which is I mean,
they were talking about huge, huge numbers. These are significant buildings.
I mean, it's a it's a giant, giant factory. So
you know, it's not unheard of for for space to
be shared among some of these even big companies. Now
(22:32):
hopefully I'm sure that Eliot is thinking later we can
expand if we need more space, you know. But in
two thousand thirteen, Scott also the company said that they
would be bringing fift dred jobs to Shreveport with this
see now that's by the end that's that's the other
thing as this becomes maybe a little bit of a
political move from the governor of Louisiana because um Bobby Jindal,
(22:56):
who is the governor, is a presidential hopeful, so he
needs to kind of like a positive spin on the
job story in that area in order to boost his
image as a job creator. And by getting them into
this plant, you know that by the what's the name
of the group, Zegas group of the spinning company, this
is something that he can point to to say, yeah,
(23:18):
I've I've created fifteen hundred new jobs or two thousand
new jobs in my area in this area, and uh,
you know, go me, I guess. And you know the
other side of the coin, though, is that he's been
promising that you know, Elio Motors with with Paul Elio
Is is going to um also produce you know, fifteen
hundred jobs. But that's been kind of put off and
(23:38):
put off and put off, and that's given him kind
of a little bit of a bad rep because he's
also got his weight behind us and saying, yeah, this
is something that's going to happen, and then then every
time there's a delay, everybody kind of looks to him
and to Paul, Elio says, what's going on? So he
like invested his reputation as exactly right, And you know,
I guess rightfully. So, I mean, you've got you've got
big hopes that this is really gonna work. Can it
(24:00):
just hasn't to this point. But the P four. I
can't believe we've got this far without saying that that's
the name of the newest prototype, the four. I didn't
even know that. Yeah, it, uh, it looks pretty cool,
you know. I don't agree with the color they chose.
You don't like the orange because we see the orange
in every every emotional stuff. Yeah, that's what they take around. Yeah,
(24:20):
but it does look refined, doesn't it. It looks like
a cool vehicle. I would love to I would love
to take one for a ride. The uh. The issue now, though,
is will this spell the end of Elio? Will Elio
be able to get the money it needs, because that's
the primary thing. Sure, yeah, are we talking? I mean,
who knows if we're talking thirty million or two d
(24:43):
forty million or something in between. But it's a significant
amount of money that they still need. They've got a product,
they've got the place They've got all that stuff in
in position. They just need this massive influx of money
in order to make it all work. And you know,
even then, I guess once they reached that point, are
we are we going to see the Elio? Is it
gonna happen? Well, I want to say that. I want
(25:06):
to say a couple other points here, so earlier this summer. Listeners,
some of you may be familiar with the website called
Reddit R E, D, D I T. Where you can
just learn a bunch of news, people find other stuff
they like on the internet. They posted to Reddit. That's
basically how it works. They also have these interviews with people,
(25:27):
right and they have one uh they're called Ask Me
Anything or a m as. They had an A M
A with Paul Elio in July and uh he said
he was asked, um, what about potential customers being frustrated
or discouraged by repeated delays? And I'd like to read
his quote here, fair question. He wrote, the primary cause
(25:50):
of delay in Elio Motor's project is surrounding funding, particularly
this round, because projects like Elio don't come along very often.
They're not established pools of money that invests in these
products in hindsight, he says, I could have probably chosen
better paths over the last year. We're now on our way.
So I I think that's a that's a pretty fair point,
(26:12):
and I wanted to make sure we got that on
the air, because he's right, there aren't really established pools
of money for people starting a three wheeled car, debatably
motorcycle company from scratch. And this is exactly the problem
that ap Tera faced as well, uh, you know, recently.
So it's something that we can all look to in
the past and see see exactly what happened. You can
(26:34):
you can see the entire case, you know, from beginning
to end in that one. Um, so hopefully this one
will have a better ending point than a Tera did.
But yeah, I don't know. I really do like the
design of this. I think it's a neat little car.
I mean it's definitely it seems almost like a third
car like this is, or actually this is the car
that would be your primary daily driver. I suppose, you know,
(26:54):
like a commuter type car. I guess you can call
it a third I don't know where where would this
fit in the depends on where you live, man. Yeah,
so so, but it's an interesting idea and interesting design.
And the latest one, the P four. I didn't know
I was looking at what they call the P four.
But the interior, the exterior, everything is very much refined
from the last version I saw when we talked about this,
(27:15):
it was very rough. It was very um like molded
plastic that had just come out of the out of
the press. Whereas this thing looks nice. It looks like
a professional job, you know, it really does. It's a
good looking vehicle, I think. Also during January meeting in
ken Epperson's district, Paul Elio said he was still working
(27:36):
on obtaining private investors, and he'd also applied for a
hundred and eighty five million dollar U S Department of
Energies Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan and to date that
has provided nothing. But but if it does happen, that
means this car will be produced. I really believe that.
I mean, all those bad news that we keep hearing
(27:56):
about it, you know, it's chipping away at the reputation
of Elio. I think, get it definitely hurts them, but
it seems like they're they're maintaining the course. They're saying no, no,
that's not bad news, and here's why. And they, you know,
the PR person or Paul Elio himself will come out
and say, no, no, that's that's not the case. And
here's the here's the way it really is. Now again,
we're on the side of having to We're in the
(28:17):
in the position, I guess, of having to hear both
sides of this, because we absinitely hear these bad things
coming out about it. And are people still wanting to
throw a thousand dollars at it, you know individually, I
don't know. I mean we got some you know, we
had some emails and uh some some tweets I believe,
messages from listeners about Elio and some some so many
(28:39):
folks made no qualms or made no bones about it,
said Elio is a scam. Better off throwing your money
into the wind and hoping two d dollars blows back
at you or something I can't like. I can't remember,
but it was. It was pretty witty, and uh, you
know that we had other people saying like, well, this
is this kind of hampered progress or hindered progress occurs
(29:03):
whenever you do stuff like this. And while I can
see both sides of it, I think The most informative
answer that I can give on my position, probably yours too,
and yours as well know, is that none of us
have put in hundred dollars, five hundred dollars, thousand dollars,
(29:28):
not you, not me. Yeah, I want I wonder how
many of our listeners really have done that, and if
we had, what position would they be in at this point?
But then again, I mean, look at the numbers. Ben
even if you know, okay, so that we we said
that they've got about forty thou current investors, you know,
people that have put between. But if they had all
put in one thousand dollars the maximum amount, we're still
(29:50):
talking about only forty million dollars at that point. So
we know that they haven't done that. Some people are
in for five hundreds, some people in for two hundreds,
or for all all different levels. But if they had
all done one thousand dollars, we're talking about forty million dollars.
And you can see how these numbers just don't quite
work out. If he if he doubles the amount of
investors to eight and they all put in another you know,
(30:14):
one thousand, the additional people put in one thousand dollars
towards it, you're still only gaining another forty thousand, and
that's just barely chipping away at forty million. I'm sorry,
you're still just chipping away at the amount that's really
do which is two hundred million or is it a
hundred thirty or whatever? But what about this? Though? They
also opened up a clothing line. They're selling T shirts.
(30:34):
They're selling t shirt also selling and there's a true
story unused machinery from the plant about that. Now, that's
a good idea. I agree with that. Now you've got
this facility that has some some very very expensive, large
machine to get very very specialized, and there's going to
be people interested in that. They're selling that stuff on
eBay as a matter of fact, which is crazy, but
(30:55):
they're doing that. But the clothing thing, how many hats
do you think you have to sell to get one
and thirty million dollars? Or how many key chains that
say elio or you know, or a upper sticker that
says I believe or whatever? Um. You know, it's it's
tough to to do something like that, um on a
scale that actually makes a difference. I mean, that might
keep keep the lights on in the factory for another
(31:17):
month or two. But that's about it. Yeah, well, okay,
I am an optimistic person. Hope springs eternal forever, right,
But it is it is true that this is a
very tough case. And while I don't think it's the
end of Elio yet, it is a crucial time for
(31:40):
the company. And the thing is they're so close. I mean,
as we said, with the product and everything. They've got
this ready to go. And I think people, I really
do think people want a car like this. I think
people will buy a car like this, right, and I
think there's a market for it. I think. But once
you see it in person and and get a chance
or a feel for what this really is, as long
as it doesn't show up and it's like all rickety
(32:01):
and cheap, you know, once we actually get our hands
on it, right that you know, you drive it and
it's like it's a rattle trap and you know it's
it's loud, and it doesn't it doesn't meet the eighty
four miles per gallon or whatever. As long as none
of that happens, you know, some really bad press. Once
they start building them, If they build them, I think
it's going to do well, but we've got to just
get or they've got to just get over that last bump,
(32:23):
and that last bump is a two million dollar bump. Well,
if the if the company raises UM, I've got I've
got an article, uh from very recently quoting that the
company needs to make two d and twenty five million
to be able to start production. However, you and I
both know that number varies widely because a lot of
(32:44):
it is speculation. Well, we've said seven or eight numbers
in this podcast, right, right, But but also journalists are
approaching the FEDS about the status of that loan application,
and the FEDS aren't talking. Don selak Uh, spokesman spokesman
with the Department of Energy, wouldn't tell anybody how long
the steps would take or comment on the application. These
(33:06):
loans have three steps. So the first is UH that
you have qualified to be considered for the loan. The
second step is Uncle Sam looking at everything, every single thing,
and if you make it past there, then the third
is just the details. So the second is like the
big audit. The second is the big one. I would
(33:27):
be willing to bet that they're in this big audit
phase at this point, trying to figure out if they're
good for the five million plus interest to be paid back. Yeah,
that's probably why they can't really talk about it. Yeah,
I'm sure that's the case. But um, and you know,
I guess you could also go the other route and say, like, well,
they're just trying to squash this, they're trying to make
it not happen, right, or the the rest of the
(33:48):
auto industry is saying, maybe you know, since you're also
in our pocket or we're in your pocket or both, Um,
you know that maybe maybe this isn't the vehicle for
us right now, maybe we should you should just kind
of neglect that one for a little while. Um do
you think I have to ask you this? Because we've
talked about it before, it's not necessarily related, But Scott,
(34:11):
I want to ask you, and uh listeners ask you
as well, how much influence would you say the Big
Three have over up starts in the auto industry and
federal regulation. That's tough because I mean, I guess it's
just something you have to just think about for a
long time because it can't answer it with one one liner.
(34:32):
You can't answer it, and with what we've got left
in this podcast, I don't think, But but do you
think that there was an effort to again squash what
what what Ellen Musk is doing with with Tesla? I know,
well we did a podcast on the dealership stuff. I
think it was one of the mystery shows. And we
(34:53):
know that lobbies for dealerships are or associations, trade associations
and such are assiduously working against Tesla's proposed sales model.
And that's part of what allows him to continue production
is that you know, this this new sales method or
not really new, but this this sales method direct sales,
so let's just call it. It saves the company million,
(35:16):
hundreds of millions of dollars. Probably they're having to open
dealerships nationwide to sell his products. Yeah, and I don't
think that's a coincidence. Yeah, I see. And then there's
also we should also say that for more info on that,
you can refer to this mystery show number two or
something before we number them. Okay, yeah, so maybe, but
(35:36):
it's one of Ben's. It's the one where I sound
kind of smug because I'm the one who knows what's happening. Yeah,
So I wonder, I wonder how much of an effort
there is behind that, you know, with with other startups
as well, maybe something that we don't even really hear of.
I mean, just yeah, the smaller operations that that are
starting to emerge, and then it's quickly put away. And really,
what what would be in the interest of if if
(36:00):
something like that existed, which I'm sure versions of it
have existed in the past. Uh, if if there were
some kind of uh conspiratorial stuff going and foots, then
what like, at what point is it worth it because
it's got to be expensive to try to move the
wheels of Congress. Well, this all goes back to the
Tucker story to it. It does, which I believe was
(36:23):
you know, we both do. I believe it was a
stitch up man, and I think they took him down
and we both do, and I think that I think
it was proven later, you know, after it was it
was not a threat anymore. Right, Yeah, So all right, Well, man,
I think we've maybe given you kind of the latest
on the Elio and where that all stands, and hopefully
we haven't missed any important or crucial points here along
(36:45):
the way, because there's there's seems like there's always a
little something popping up in the news about this in
the last well what eight or nine months even, right,
and there's going to be some more. We can expect
a flurry of news in the coming months as we
approach what would have been the production date and as
(37:05):
we get towards the new one. I will say that,
although I have not invested any money in Elio, I
am hopeful that the that the cars or the vehicles
actually come to production, will they won't they? What do
you think? Let us know? Absolutely? Yeah, I think I
(37:26):
think that we need to uh maybe even do a
third episode where we find out what happens with us
a loan or you know, whether they make it or not,
and if they're go into production, for sure, we're going
to do another episode on this. Yeah. Look, I'd love
to be wrong about my skepticism, Scott. I would love
to show up in person at an Elio dealership, shake
the hand of whomever selling it and say, hey, I
(37:46):
was wrong, I'm glad you made it. I'm glad you
made it, and and that will all be sincere. But
I I think that they have that that the next
two months are going to be crucial and they will
say who is that guy in the purple suit that
was the strangest thing and walked out. Yeah, I gotta
have a disguise on, right, Yeah, something cool. They'll be like,
(38:07):
who wears a monocle? And and I patch. Alright, folks,
we're gonna get out of here. We're gonna mosey on
down the way. We hope that you enjoyed this episode.
We'd like to hear from you on Facebook and Twitter,
where we are car Stuff hs W. Feel free to
like our page to follow us on Twitter. Uh, every
little like, every little follow makes us our bosses like
(38:29):
us that much more. We have a website where you
can hear all this podcasts we talked about earlier. That
website is car Stuff show dot com and if you
want to email us directly, we'd love to hear from you.
And also side note, thanks for everybody sending limericks. It
was weird that, you know what, We've got so many
limericks right now that I don't even know if we
can begin to read them on air, it would it
would cover more than an episode. It might cover more
(38:51):
than an episode. Very clever. By the way, all of
them seem to be really really good. I mean, and
the rhymes are really working out, and yeah, some are
going off scripted it, you know, with clever, Yeah, with
with different rhyming patterns and things again, very clever. Yeah,
I'm excited about the stuff we've got already. Yeah, I've
got of my limerick writing game in the interim. But
(39:11):
please do send that to us. We'd love to hear
what you think about ilio. Have you donated money to it?
Do you think it's utter bunk? Either way, let us know,
and do so by writing to us at our email address,
which is car stuff at how stuff work dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics is
(39:32):
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think,
send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
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