Isn't there a saying about if something seems too good to be true, that might actually be the case?
Excelsior-Henderson (Hanlon) was well capitalized and built a new state of the art plant and still went bust and they actually made close to a couple thousand vehicles
Excelsior-Henderson Motorcycle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elio doesn't seem anywhere close to the level of "legitimate business" E-H was.