The Elio three-wheeled car, which seems perpetually “18 months away,” has had yet another delay in going to production. Elio Motors has announced that production on the car, expected mid-year this year (and last year, and the year before..) is now delayed until sometime in 2016.
The delay? Funding, of course. They’re still $240 million short. It appears that Elio has put most of their eggs into the government basket and is hoping for that EPA loan and the sale of surplus automotive tooling from the Caddo plant they’ve leased. Elio’s CEO, Paul Elio, says that they think they can get private funding if they sell enough of that surplus equipment to get a grub stake. If so, the company will need to update its financials to become more realistic, we think.
Elio fans are still hopeful and a lot of deposits are said to have been put down on the car. There were 10,000 Elio reservations back in February last year and the company now claims about 38,000 reservations for the 84+ mpg car on the frontpage of the website. Let’s hope that the company’s financials will work out for all those that put down deposits.
Editor’s note – Watch our Elio Motors Review to get a better idea about the Elio.
