is this car the BIGGEST SCAM of the Century?
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- Опубліковано 27 січ 2024
- The Dale by 20th Century Automobiles was the vehicle scam of last century. This century that award may belong to Elio Motors and their three-wheeled vehicle was supposed to sell for under $7K and get 84 mpg. This garnered $28.7 million dollars in reservations, but nobody ever was able to get a car.
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elio is one of those companies ive checked up on every 6 months or so to see where the scam is at, over the course of my adult life. hilarious vaporware.
It certainly was too good to be true.
Same...I gave up checking in 2022...stumbled on this and more pissed than ever, especially for those who got bilked...thankfully I never put money down, but was hoping it'd come to pass :-(
@@joshua_pasafarming I gave a depost in 2014 and stopped checking on the company by 2018.
Even sadder is that major car manufacturers are not selling affordable sub-compact/compact cars in the USA anymore! So those on a budget (millions of us) are screwed if we want an affordable new car. Just fairly recently, we could purchase a new Honda Fit, Mazda 2, Toyota Yaris or Scion, Mitsubishi Mirage, Ford Fiesta or Focus, VW Golf, Kia Rio, etc. for under 20K new! These were quality small cars that could last a decade or more, and go well over 100K miles with minimal maintenance! It's maddening to see oversized pickup trucks and SUV's that cost a small fortune now, and next to no choices for affordable small cars!
You can buy a Mitsubishi Mirage, Nissan Versa and Kia Rio as they are all under $20K brand new. Manufacturers make what people want. So, if they want things above $20K and are big, that's what they make.
@@billsmith5960 I think the issue is a combination of small, "cheap" cars not selling as well as CUVs and manufacturers trying to push more profitable vehicles on consumers. They put shiny objects in consumers' faces that they "need" but can't actually afford, so they keep pushing the length of vehicle loan terms, currently at 96 months. I have no desire to make 96 car payments spread over 8yrs. It will inevitably result in more people trading in upsidedown vehicle loans.
Because of the 20 year rule people are now importing Kei trucks from japan for instance. If you can deal with the hassle, it can be under 10K for a used truck with the bed size of your average fullsize and 30+MPG
@@kriegjaeger - It's actually 25 years. We have a place by us that sells them. I went and drove one. In the end, if I needed a cheap reliable form of transportation, it would be a good used Civic or Corolla. The Kei trucks and vans are a niche and not that great for US roads or winter driving. Plus drive it in the winter here and they will rust away right before your eyes.
@@billsmith5960 Good to know! Though I know they are used in the mountainous, snowy areas of japan so there must be something we're missing...
I almost put my money down on this years ago.
Almost.
Whew!
You made the right decision or to do it.
same.
Same. I was gonna put about 1500 on elio stocks. Thank the mf stars it didn't happen.
Too bad, I really wanted one of these
It seemed like an interesting concept. Perhaps someone else will make one that makes it to production eventually.
@@OurRideLifethey already did, it’s called a Polaris Slingshot.
Such a shame for it to just be a scam. I was a believer after I saw it in 2013/14. It made sense, looked cool, and could've been a great commuter.
Yes, seems like it could have been an interesting car.
Just buy a 3 wheel motorcycle and get a shell built over it. Much simpler and better designed but 25k.
Elio was a moving goalposts scheme. They built the prototype on a bike chassis, added a 3cyl Geo Metro engine, and a plastic body with two car seats, a steering wheel and Metro gear selector.
They could have built that with mostly off the shelf components for about 10k.....nooooooo..... we're going to develop our own inhouse suspension, Regen braking, our own motor,our own gear box, .....
That says SCAM.
It's not a scam. Paul was simply unable to raise enough money to actually build the thing. One major mistake made was they wanted to design their own engine from scratch and use that, which is a very expensive thing to do. They should have used an existing engine for much less money. That would have given them more of a chance to actually build the cars, sell them, and have some profit.. In time, when cash was less of a problem, they could have designed and built their own engine.
I was so excited when I heard about this 7ish years ago. I almost put down a reservation but went "Wait, let's wait for full release or wave 2 to make sure the bugs are ironed out." and seeing this just made me go oof. I remember thinking it was a year or two out because why would they take orders so soon, but now I see it was a never was. :c
Well, I do know little about the Elio scam; however, the thing about three-wheel vehicles, in general, the only successful three-wheel car that we have nowadays is the Polaris Slingshot family of three-wheel vehicles; the three-wheel car set-up itself is still considered as a niche a car to afford nowadays even if it's under $7,000 or less, it is still a challenge for the manufacturer nowadays to sell vehicles under that kind of price and under that style of platform. There are a couple of issues with the three-wheeler car. It's still considered a motorcycle similar to an ATC but in reverse. The problem is that three-wheel vehicles are still considered unsafe to drive on Modern roads; despite what kind of Technology they put in, they still need safe cars. And I don't see the point of three-wheel vehicles changing the automotive landscape. Besides, the concept of three-wheel vehicles has been around for a long time, so it's a dated setup. But I would love to have a three-wheeler, a car just as a city commuter, not as a city-to-city or state-to-state road-going vehicle.
Some fair points. It’s an interesting concept, but will probably always have a limited market.
I put down $100. was willing to loose that at least in hopes it would get made. Tried to sell my reservation to the faithful who supported Paul Elio. In exchange for my $100 reservation I would actually buy their Elio produced vehicle for them. But no one would take me up on my offer. Even the faithful did’nt believe it would happen. Madoff should have hired Paul Elio and he would have stayed out of jail.
Should of made it a kit car. Would make more sense and could of stayed within reason at 8,500.
I really wanted this vehicle. Too bad it never happened, but at least I didn't put down any money on one.
Paul Elio is probably living off the grid somewhere under the name Liz Carmichael...
You are probably right.
He owns a used car dealer in Phoenix. So, he's out there and anyone can go see him. I doubt anyone will though.
The modern story like a Tucker. It was killed by the big 5.
This is an example of how three wheelers are a play toy. Paul had the grand plans of selling 250K per year. Plus he needed around $600M to get this done. Then he was struggling for money and doubled down. After that it just ran it's course. Run the company until it's broke and walk away. Also, none of his claims were tested by a third party. For some reason, people just believed a stranger with grandiose claims and gave him money for that. It's almost like that there's a sucker born every minute.
I think Elio needed to sell 200,000 cars to break even. There is a demand for hundreds, perhaps a few thousand.
@@timothykeith1367 - It took them over 4 years to even get 65K reservations. So the numbers never added up when it came to the demand he thought it would get. Most thought that when they were out on the road, it would make the sales numbers go through the roof. Easier said than done.
Trying to develop his own engine a major mistake. Sucked the life out of his company. Most investors got a tee shirt of they were lucky. Or was he just a crook?
I sat in an Elio in Cross County Shopping Center in 2013
I had high hopes, but not high enough to put any money down.
Thank God!
Glad you didn’t put any money down.
Myself and other Automotive engrs here in Detroit initially thought this was great!! .. only $7K, "sure I'll buy one!!" ... then started critically reviewing this company, 10mins later we all agreed "it's a SCAM to collect preorder money!!!"
What do you think of The Carver? It's now on it's second version in 20 years and seems to be selling as a Urban alternative to cars & bicycles. @@KrustyKlown
Want to produce this car! Maybe it can be bought and we could put it into production!
Paul Elio runs a used car business in Phoenix, so contact him. I bet he'd sell you one. Just look up "ReNew Automotive Sales" and then you will be set.
There is no patents, you can go build it now.
@@Otterbruce there are patents! Still would need lots of money to produce them?
Scam of the century. Ahh Aptera is taking up that challenge. Hold their beer.
The century is still young.
Very true, but saying the biggest scam in the last 25 years didn’t sound as good.
@@OurRideLife I hope the Aptera reservers get their pod cars, but the company has been working that idea fie 25 years and has declared bankruptcy once already.
It seems very much like a repeat ...thousands of pre orders, a few prototypes from off the shelf components paraded before UA-cam influencers, photoshopped "inventory" publicity pictures and every year the goalpost is moved for just one more innovation if you'll invest more in our company.
I watched Elio Motors from the very beginning and saw immediate tell tale signs that it would never come to be. First was the insanely low promised price...which NEVER happens unless you are tooled up for automated mass production. You do enjoy economy of scale...but getting to scale is VERY expensive and the numbers Elio was talking about in the first year of production...250,000 is just crazy if you know anything about auto production.
What they could have done is hand build and begin selling them at whatever price they could get. For sure it would have been over $8000 but I'm sure there would have been plenty of people willing to pony up double that or more just to have the 'newest toy' on the block. Then as time goes on you improve the production methods and if it turns into a big hit...you might end up making a bunch of them, but trying for the Home Run production before you build a single one for sale....never happens. Having frittered away all the initial investment making prototypes leaves you nothing left for actual production...looking at YOU Aptera!
Just ask Delorean about how that goes...and is why you can still buy 99% of his car NOS because he convinced all his suppliers that they were going to build 250,000 the first year and everyone geared up for it....but then they went bust and left everyone holding the bag with warehouses full of parts but no production to use them. I've worked on several Delorean's over the years and knowing that story the Elio gave off the exact same vibe to me. Only difference was John Z was selling coke to stay afloat while Elio took deposits and has run out of money now and never got close to the capital investment needed to gear up for mass production. GM will spend billions on a new car...but then sell them by the millions. Well...they used to anyhow.
Elio needed $600M for the whole business plan to work, they only raised $110M. So they fell short of their funding goal. Thus why they went belly up.
@@billsmith5960Right...unless someone had given him the full $600 mil on day one would that business plan had any chance of producing any saleable autos.
But then where are you at with a promised price of $8000? How much profit margin could there be? And how many of these things could you sell to pay back the investment?
Of course the people who had that kind of money to invest wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole because there is NO way they'd ever get their money back let alone a profit.
Give them $1000 profit each (which is insanely high) means before that initial investment has been consumed you need to sell 600,000 vehicles. There wasn't that kind of demand for these things so it was a dream (or scam) from the beginning.
The price didn't seem insanely low to me. I bought a new Mitsubishi Mirage in 2014. They were selling back then for $10k-$12k, which included a 10yr/100k mile warranty and 4 real seats. $6,800 for a car half the size seemed realistic.
@@palebeachbum - It was. Remember, manufacturers like Mitsubishi have been building cars for years and have a multitude of models. Cheap ones make the least amount of money for them. They are pretty much the lost leader.
Elio had one model and there wasn't a single person in the world of automotive manufacturing that believed Elio could make them for that price and have a decent profit margin. Yet for the average person, they bought into it.
Eventually, the mules or prototypes Elio made will be collector items.
I believe his real dream was to defraud thousands of people, take the money and run.......
The Elio was a great concept, but it was poorly executed.
Just because a new innovative product fails does not mean it was a scam. Elio was targeted, similar to Tucker. Doomed to fail because it threatened the mainstream.
I would buy one or make one (if i could) with a few differences.
What really hurt Elio is that these were not cars. Under most states rules, these are considered motorcycles. However vehicles like these are still far better than an EV.
Why Elio don't cooperate with Tesla to produce a cheapest and affordable car ? If you lack money , you can join with other car companies to make your dream come true !
I followed them for a few years. Never gave them any money. After awhile, and not seeing any progress, I gave up on them. I think he was living off the money.
I think you may be right.
Well they cleaned out the auto plant they were gifted and sold millions of dollars worth of equipment and a lot of that money was sent to an engineering company to help further develop the car. That company was called Elio engineering and a separate company than Elio Motors. He profited well from his failed business.
Saw this at Detroit auto show in 2018 and thought it was neat but alas
It is an interesting concept, but perhaps it was the wrong people involved.
1:45 "it's not a small car right it's a full-size vehicle cut in half so from Crush Zone's perspective it's not small um we have three airbags two seat belts antilock brakes electronic stability control so we're we're designing the highest Automotive uh safety standards." This is the scam. Three wheels means it has to meet motorcycle safety standards, not car standards. If it meets the high automotive safety standards, then put a fourth wheel on it. Not a chance it would meet regulatory compliance. I had a convertible car and a motorcycle in California. I was required to wear a helmet on my motorcycle but forbidden to wear a helmet in my convertible (racing paraphernalia). Let's road test it against a Can Am Spyder.
A lot of claims were made, but it’s easy to do that when you don’t actually make a real vehicle.
I told y'all 14 years ago it was a scam. Lol
So many startup EV companies following this path lots of people gonna loose money.
I think you are correct. There aren’t too many that will be another Tesla.
Elio motors pisses me off!
Where's the beef?
Well said.
I think Paul Elio had a vision and worked his way through the plan. Not enough capital will kill any new venture and that was Elio's problem. Elio wasn't a scam. There was no intention from the start to take people's money and not deliver. The funding just wasn't there to follow through with a marketable product.
The total amount he needed was $600M. So they raised $110M. Thus not even close to what he needed for the business plan. Not counting the mistakes of the early days of leasing the plant and taking a loan out on the equipment. When he eas late on the payments for the equipment, it defaulted to 18% interest on a $26M loan. Then late on the lease, added up fines and penalties. Then there was the $7.5M fine for not producing the promised 1500 jobs by 2015.
So, the company was drowning in fines and penalties all while to spending a boatload on lobbyists to change licensing and regulations in all 50 states when it came to autocycles. In the end, they spent $36M on the actual vehicle and the rest went to everyone else. Not to mention that Paul drew a $250K/year salary after the company went silent.
It'll be a fun car to drive. Patience is the key.
Sorry, Bud but I had to give this video a thumbs down. Only because of miss information, this is not a small car, this is a motorbike.
Who is this miss information lady you are talking about? Maybe learn the difference between a lady with the last name information and misinformation before spouting off!
@AR-ed3xw .. spouting off is what I do against the dumb downs.. difference between facees & asses cars are not bikes.. apparently many think elio was a car for not researching miss information
@@Lou2U2-hn1qq that's all you can come up with? That's pitiful and sad!
@AR-ed3xw not as pitiful as your understanding
@Lou2U2-hn1qq I never said I thought it was a car! I tried to point out the difference in misinformation and your "miss information" but you seem to have a problem comprehending! Too busy spouting off!!!