
Elio Motors: $6800 car, 84 mpg - zeppelin_7
http://www.eliomotors.com/
======
lumberjack
At that price tag I see it competing with used cars. If you are looking for
cheap transportation you can get a used car in a decent condition for ~$2000.
That would leave you with $4800 to spend on gas. According to the EIA the
average household spends $3000 on gas per year. Dividing by two and assuming
two cars and two daily commutes, the $4800 would only last for around three
years.

So that means that it would take three years for somebody to break even and
start saving cash on gas if you decide to go with the Elio instead of a used
car.

So whether this concept will sell or not depends in part on whether the
customers will view it as a long term investment or a short term fix until
they are better off financially.

And I really don't buy their second commuter-only-car pitch. Somebody who can
afford a new $20K vehicle can also afford the $700 (they claim $800 in gas per
year) yearly penalty on gas, so the only people I see being attracted by this
concept are people short on money which probably drive used cars.

[http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=9831](http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=9831)

~~~
cylinder
Can you show me an example of a decent condition used car that's going to be
reliable @ $2000?

~~~
X-Istence
I bought a 1998 Kia Sephia for $1000, with 92k miles on it. Drove it for 2.5
years when the transmission started going out on it at 142k miles. Sold it for
$450.

After that bought a 2001 Hyundai Accent for $1000, with 96k miles on it. Drove
that thing until it had 136k at which point it started having some issues that
would be expensive to fix. Sold that after owning it for 3.5 years for $900. I
put about 4k into it, including oil changes, AC charges, and various other
bits of maintenance (timing belt was expensive). I don't think I did too bad.

Both cars were bought in Phoenix, AZ, the Kia was sold there too, the Hyundai
I sold in Denver, CO since I had moved there.

The Hyundai got fantastic gas mileage at about 30 Mpg with city/highway
driving (about 50:50 mix). The Kia a little less at 28 mpg.

Both the Kia and the Hyundai were reliable for the time period that I had the
car. Had I put some more time into the Hyundai it would probably have kept
going without issues, I just was in the position with work and my finances to
be able to go and purchase a car rather than continue putting money into a
car.

------
simantel
The site didn't load for me, but I found their YouTube[1] channel to have a
gander. They remind me a lot of the microcars[2] of the 40s and 50s, the most
famous of which would be BMW's Isetta[3]. In terms of style, however, I the
Elio reminds me a bit of the Messerschmitt KR200[4].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/user/eliomotors](https://www.youtube.com/user/eliomotors)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcar)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_KR200](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_KR200)

~~~
allsystemsgo
Oh Lord. Their videos could use some work. Not trying to diminish their work
though. I'm really happy that multiple companies are tackling the affordable,
fuel efficient, car void.

I found this piece that discusses their financial viability.
[http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/19/paul-elio-motors-
release...](http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/19/paul-elio-motors-releases-
financials/)

~~~
oftenwrong
Yeah the videos are a bit cringy.

------
amalag
I think they REALLY should have put a CVT in it. I don't know why they are
still in the manual / automatic mode. CVTs are great for low powered cars.
They have less moving parts than automatic transmissions. They are standard on
Mitsubishis and Nissans now.

------
hornbaker
Since it appears to be down, here is Google's cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cQY-
Ft3...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cQY-
Ft3SkY4J:www.eliomotors.com/)

------
Jagat
Tata motors has been selling a $2000, 66mpg car called Nano in India since
2008.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano)

~~~
amalag
Even in India people don't like it very much. They say it runs like an auto
rickshaw with a body. It has 2 cydlinders and 37hp.

~~~
kamaal
That's unfair to Nano.

If you ask people who are driving a Honda City as to whether they will buy a
Nano. The answer is obviously no.

Either way Maruthi Suzuki 800 variants like Alto, WagonR et al. Are pretty
good low segment vehicles.

And for Indian roads, traffic and wear and tear. Unless you have surplus money
which you wish to waste. Its nonsense to buy an expensive car(For daily uses
at least).

~~~
amalag
Well I have never driven one, I only asked my cousin. But you are right about
Indian roads and traffic. If you are going 2km/h with a pothole you can swim
in, why do you need an expensive car.

------
Zigurd
Priced too low. You can get nice used cars at the price. Any Toyota or Honda
engine should run to 200-250k miles. I doubt this thing will make it to 100k.

If Honda made a semi-enclosed three wheeler for the "damn it I'm riding no
matter the weather" audience, they would have a chance. They could also sell
it for at least $10k and still sell a lot of them. The Elio is a solution to
no particular problem.

~~~
kamaal
Their site says 5000+ people have already ordered it. So its already solving
their problems, no?

Besides used cars are still 'used' cars. And its not just engine running
200-250K miles. By 100K miles the juice from the engine is gone. It can still
run an additional 150K miles, may be. But for a very different definition of
'run'.

And you still have to drive some one else's used car, for mileage no where
close to Elio. Plus all other wear and tear hassles of an old car.

Here you get a brand new one for a decent price which can run for the next 2
years. And for 6.8K dollars its a super cheap investment to make.

------
iknight
"Uncaught SecurityError: Blocked a frame with origin
"[http://www.youtube.com"](http://www.youtube.com") from accessing a frame
with origin "[http://www.eliomotors.com"](http://www.eliomotors.com").
Protocols, domains, and ports must match."

looking for web development help?

~~~
dangrossman
Are you offering to help YouTube? That error indicates code on youtube.com is
being blocked from accessing the page embedding the video (which would, for
example, stop Google from accessing your personal info on every site that
embeds a YouTube video). It's not something the containing page is doing
wrong.

------
kqr2
In case the site is still down:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20131108025621/http://www.eliomo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20131108025621/http://www.eliomotors.com/)

------
hongquan
Wonder how this came up today, these guys have been around since 2008, or a
year before I started my three wheeler "car" company. I am surprised to see
they have one that runs, but the road to production will be long and rough.
I'll bet anyone $100 that they won't ship a production version by "Summer of
2014".

------
patrickg_zill
For myself, I would be interested in this car due to low price, high expected
reliability (not a lot to go wrong), excellent fuel economy and the ability to
use HOV lanes. I have an SUVish vehicle and frankly it is overkill for what I
typically carry.

------
lttlrck
They should have left out the size comparison with the Cadillac CTS. Almost
the same size?!

------
null_ptr
Looks cool and I'd love to have one to zoom to work and around the city, but I
would hate to be in an accident against a normal car, let alone a multi-ton
SUV, and that's what pretty much everyone else drives.

~~~
aeturnum
There are other small cars, like those manufactured by Smart, that do quite
well in crash tests. The car probably won't survive, but it's relatively cheap
to build a top-quality protective cage around the driver when the interior is
this small.

------
__xtrimsky
There is no way I'm driving this in the US next to large SUV/Hummers.

It's nice, but if someone slightly bumps into you, you're dead :/

------
VladRussian2
i kind of hate to put myself at risk of overturning at 80mph on mild windy day
on mild turn on 280 just because 3 wheeler (motorcycle) is easier (read
cheaper) to certify than 4 wheeler (car). Of course that is also because i can
afford to pay additional money of "car price", and i'd probably thought
differently if i couldn't.

Not saying that such a vehicle don't have its place. Though i have hard time
imagining it. If not highway - than cities - European cities are well
populated either by small 4-wheel cars or just scooters. Doesn't seem like
there is niche for car size 3 wheeler without full benefits of a car.

~~~
hingisundhorsa
I looked up the point you are making. The data backs you up, 3 wheelers suffer
from inherent instability on turns.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8)
"When the single wheel is in the front , the vehicle is inherently unstable in
a braking turn, as the combined tipping forces at the center of gravity from
turning and braking can rapidly extend beyond the triangle formed by the
contact patches of the wheels. This type, if not tipped, also has a greater
tendency to spin out ("swap ends") when handled roughly." What a pity. I was
quite excited about the prospects.

~~~
kennywinker
Not to disagree, but I believe many of the problems with three-wheeled
vehicles are solved by putting the single wheel at the BACK. e.g. the Peugeot
HyMotion3
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9ZT8adga1E](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9ZT8adga1E)

~~~
VladRussian2
The main point of HyMotion3 is motorcycle-style whole vehicle body leaning
inside the turn - completely different game.

------
pkaye
Is it a one person car?

~~~
a3n
Mostly. Video shows a convertible back seat "for your kid."

Video also compares this against a similarly priced used car, but if you need
more than one real seat for a family, this isn't it.

It's a toy for Silicon Valley.

------
ibudiallo
Wordpress does not handle hackernews very well.

~~~
fuzzix
Not to defend Wordpress as I'm not particularly a fan, but it's not all that
complex to use Wordpress/Apache behind nginx with a reasonable caching
strategy.

Even on a cheap VPS I've configured it to handle tens of thousands of requests
per minute.

~~~
dangrossman
You don't even need nginx or a cache. Bog-standard WordPress, no extra
plugins, behind only Apache, will handle HN front-page traffic without falling
over. All you need to tune is httpd.conf and my.cnf; the reason these sites
die is that they allow more Apache processes to spin up than their little VPS
actually has RAM.

The httpd processes push the MySQL posts table out of the OS's filesystem
cache, the newly spun up processes eat up all the free memory, and you start
swapping and the whole thing falls over. Turn off keepalive, set the maximum
number of httpd processes to a number that leaves enough RAM for the DB and
filesystem cache, and the blog would be fine.

My blog's been top of HN FP a few times. It's just apache/mysql/wordpress on
the smallest Linode, sharing it with a half dozen other sites.

~~~
fuzzix
On something about half the spec of the lowest end Linode I'm not as worried
about mitigating the HN effect (not something I have to worry about) as I am
just getting the most I can from the instance - this means as few dynamically
generated and database hitting requests as possible.

But yeah, like yourself, just pointing out that a Wordpress instance that can
take a battering is eminently achievable.

------
athst
the "anticipated 5-star" safety rating doesn't feel very comforting...

~~~
jws
Generally speaking…

three wheeled "car" ⇒ couldn't pass car safety requirements, legally a
motorcycle

~~~
bri3d
That looks right, as I don't see how they could possibly have legal lights or
the silly federally mandated 2.5mph bumper.

However, I think even though they don't meet the bizarre federal "safety"
requirements they could still have the IIHS crash test it anyway, and hence
get a star rating.

It also looks like they got AAMVA to recommend that enclosed trikes not
require a motorcycle license, so that's a boon for them (sorry for the spam
press release link but secondary sources were even worse):
[http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/18/5923704/elio-motors-
judicia...](http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/18/5923704/elio-motors-judicial-
success-continues.html) .

------
dewyatt
Here is a quick rundown from cache:

Number of current reservations: 4815 (As of Nov 05, 2013)

Elio is not a fling. It is not a novelty.
=========================================

It is the product of a mobile society naturally evolving to a more efficient
and practical form of transportation.

Let’s look at the facts and realities of the world we live in:

Gas today is at an all-time high Space is becoming a smaller and smaller
commodity and we’re being crowded off our roads and bumped and dinged out of
our parking lots Cars cost more than the average house did only a few decades
ago Traditional personal transportation isn’t working like it used to. We need
a new way of getting around.

That’s when a car enthusiast, a visionary, a man with a dream named Paul Elio
got an idea. A simple, brilliant idea. To create a vehicle for today’s
generation of drivers that addressed their transportation needs and the
world’s new realities.

The result is Elio ===============

And it’s more than merely a fun, fuel-efficient way to get around. Elio can
have a profound effect on our economy – creating approximately 1500 jobs in
Louisiana alone. And we all know the ripple effect a vehicle has when you
factor in everyone from the suppliers and their employees to all the other
businesses that prosper from putting previously unemployed people to work.

Elio is a major step in curbing the erosion of our environment and making us
far less dependent on foreign oil. Just think how that will affect the
political landscape of our world!

From the economy to the environment to the national debt to foreign relations,
Elio is an idea whose time has come – and that time is now!

Specs =====

84 Miles per Gallon It gets 84 miles to the gallon on the highway. That means
you can go from Detroit to New York City on a tank of gas – or drive from
Shreveport LA to Dallas and back – then back to Dallas again – and still have
about 110 miles left before a refill. How is that possible? Keep reading.

Anticipated 5 Star Crash Test Rating Each Elio comes equipped with a Safety
Management System that includes three airbags – a reinforced roll-cage frame,
Anti-Lock Braking System, and 50% larger crush zones than similar vehicles.
Preliminary safety tests on computer models anticipate a 5-Star safety rating.

8-Gallon Tank It can go 672 miles, or thereabouts, because it has an 8-gallon
tank and 8X84=672. Of course, other factors will affect your mileage but you
get the point.

American Made = American Jobs It should come as no surprise that Elio will
create a number of much-needed jobs for American workers. We’re estimating
1,500 jobs at our Shreveport, LA plant beginning in 2014.

Power in Numbers An inline, 3 cylinder, .9 liter, 55 HP, fuel-injected, SOHC
gas-powered, liquid-cooled, automotive engine.

Eco-Friendly This is a very green vehicle – and we’re not just talking about
the color. Yes, it gets 84 MPG on the highway, but you’ll be doing your share
of city driving, too. Fear not, with its city rate of 49 MPG, you’ll be
consuming only 1/3 of what the average American vehicle consumes.

Only $6,800 It only costs $6,800. That’s about what you would pay for an
outboard motor to power a rowboat.

Our Transmission Mission 5-speed manual or automatic. And yes, it has a
reverse gear.

