Elio Motors, The Next Big Thing?!!...

[Xist]

Originally Posted by Ryland

Bugatti builds engines for lots of different cars made by many different auto makers.

Bob Dahse showed up with a list of questions and spent over an hour looking over and taking notes on the Elios until the came up to him and asked if he wanted to go for a ride, after that he plopped down a $1,000 deposit!

I've known Bob for 25+ years, he built a hybrid back in the early 90's, a hand full of electric bikes, rebuilt a Prius and his current build is a Porsche that's converted to electric and is one of the people who I call up when I have EV questions, so the fact that he's put down a full deposit, to me speaks very highly, because he's asked the questions that I haven't thought of.

I wonder if he thought of questions that they had not. My best question is usually "Hulk smash?'

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by Xist

I wonder if he thought of questions that they had not. My best question is usually "Hulk smash?'

you mean crash testing? they say it will have a 5 star crash test once it's in production, from their modeling and that there is a huge crumple zone in the front with the engine moving to the side in the worst case, moving the mass away from the driver.

[niky]

Interesting. Geo Metro motors means it really isn't that far removed from the modern Suzuki engine... what will the Bugatti motors be like, though? Based on the Metro, or something else entirely?

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by niky

Interesting. Geo Metro motors means it really isn't that far removed from the modern Suzuki engine... what will the Bugatti motors be like, though? Based on the Metro, or something else entirely?

I asked that and they were not able to give a clear answer as to what will be the same and what will be different or if the whole thing is a new design from the ground up, so we will just have to wait and see! but designing a whole engine from the ground up is expensive and tends to have bugs.

[Xist]

[Fat Charlie]

Even before "Wow, that's beautiful," my real first thought was "Wow, a 2-D car!"

[NeilBlanchard]

I'm not sure what you mean by "2-D car"?

I'm glad they have made the deposit refundable. That should increase the number of people who put down their money on a deposit.

[SentraSE-R]

Unfortunately, the "refundable" promise is only as good as the company's finances and word. In the event of bankruptcy, reservation creditors will be at the end of the collection line with nonpriority, unsecured claims. Since priority creditors and those with secured claims typically receive 40-50 cents for every dollar owed them, unsecured claimants almost always receive nothing.

[Fat Charlie]

A car that's two dimensional.

[NeilBlanchard]

The shadow gives it away as a 3D (real) car, I think?