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Sorry, but they should have stuck with "off the shelf" availability to get the first vehicle out the door. When you break your own rules to keep the cost factor under control you have now jeopardized the entire companies chances of survival. By developing your own engine parts won't be plentiful, and much less likely to be affordable in the process either.
To me this calls into question the management and making this judgement. Tooling up for the first generation car with "stuff" that is already available really is key for an effort like this for a low cost entry level vehicle. It isn't like they are selling Tesla's here with massive premiums. The margins are going to be thin and they knew that going into this.
Now I seriously have my doubts this company will survive or live to produce the Elio. Which is too bad because I personally really like this and would love to have one. I hope I am wrong, but at this point I don't think I am... You cannot throw away this kind of money in development unless you have a big wallet and time to develop it. So far the company has been wrong about timeline, looks like they have made a bad call on the engine development, looks like they did not anticipate the costs to launch and get the product out the door, and looks like mission creep has made it's way into the mix and they are forgetting the basic premise of the peoples car.
They need to draw a line in the sand, it won't be perfect, it will have lots of room to do more and greater things in the future new models, but lay out the final plans for the first car, control costs, and make sure it is rock solid and exceeds on it's mandate. If it is a good reliable vehicle and has good support you will have customers coming back for the next models. As it stands I don't think any of it is going to happen at this point unless they get a funding miracle and have time over the next few years to iron out all the wrinkles and issues.
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