Posted on 08/15/2014 12:57:38 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Your next commuter car could have two seats, three wheels and get 84 miles to the gallon.
Elio Motors wants to revolutionize U.S. roads with its tiny car, which is the same length as a Honda Fit but half the weight. With a starting price of $6,800, it’s also less than half the cost.
Phoenix-based Elio plans to start making the cars next fall at a former General Motors plant in Shreveport, Louisiana. […]
Because it has three wheels—two in front and one in the rear—the Elio is actually classified as a motorcycle by the U.S. government. But Elio Motors founder Paul Elio says the vehicle has all the safety features of a car, like anti-lock brakes, front and side air bags and a steel cage that surrounds the occupants. Drivers won’t be required to wear helmets or have motorcycle licenses. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Has it been approved?
The plant’s not open yet.
What would be the right MSRP for something like this? Under $4K?
Why would I care about making sharp turns when my concern is getting 84mpg or something near that?
Remember GM touting the Volt as 100 mpg? We’re pumping oil again in this country, a lot of it, and I want a V8, or at least a V6.
That thing looks like the lib tricycle in the lefty “global warming” movie ‘AI’. It’s spinach—don’t want! And I don’t want to have to pry them out of my trucks wheel wells.
Not to mention the insurance rate reduction!
Ordered one last year. Hope they make it to market. Not sure if I’m giving it to my son for graduation from high school or if I’ll keep it for myself. He has two younger siblings which will get one if it is all it’s cracked up to be.
Try avoiding road kill in a three-wheeler.
Nope.
Applied for. Under Review.
There are 20 Solyndras and Fiskers for every Tesla.
So the Obama DOE may be a bit gun shy.
This is a fantastic idea for a commuter vehicle. Why? Because it’s evonomical in the true sense.
It is cheap enough to add to the fleet as an additional car, meaning it doesn’t have to compromised and the buyer doesn’t have to compromise.
A 2 gallon a day delta more than pays for the cost of having it, and I can still have my F-150 when I need it.
We are pumping oil that on average cost $60+ to get out of the ground.
We are still importing over 4 million barrels of oil a day.
Gas will not be $.99 like when I was in high school driving a V8 Camaro.
I am not driving a tricycle but not dropping benjamins at the gas station like I am an infamous rapper.
Looks like Tesla is headed for the Solyndra/Fisker club either way. The Elio guy better watch out.
People miss the fact that this Elio dude is BRILLIANTLY exploiting a gap in federal regulations. Specifically, being a motorcycle means it doesn’t help with fleet MPGs, so the big guys have nothing to gain by producing similar vehicles. The market is WIDE OPEN for these vehicles if people look at them as cars, which will be the case. Plug-in hybrids don’t have a chance against them, due to cost, complexity, and a pain in the neck to plug in. I suspect that BIG CAR will watch what happens, and then if successful, do what they always do, which is go to the Federal Government to shut them down in some way (probably by including vehicles like the Elio in MPGs, and thereby undercutting Elio on price, and BIG CAR can even lose money on them...as long as they provide the MPG offsets they need).
Tesla is trying to compete, pretty much head-on, with the big guys. You want a fast car, well I have one too. But trying to beat the BIG CAR at their own game is next to impossible, as Tesla is learning (thanks to the scathing Edmunds review, and now Consumer Reports also telling the truth), and many others learned earlier.
Read the article. 84 mpg is only on the highway under ideal conditions.
I travel 60 miles on the highway 4 times a week.
Being retired, probably 80% of our driving is local - within 10-20 miles. This would be an interesting contraption.
How does it handle in heavy snow?
This would be practical for the majority of commuters, certainly as a second car. If I had the room, I would buy a car of this type.
Its counterintutitve to environmentalists that more can be less.
They believe that Americans have too many cars, so they believe that higher efficiency cars must replace lower efficiency cars, but its a false choice. You can only drive one car at a time.
Making 20 trips to the grocery store on a scooter is not efficient, but having a scooter and a car can be very efficient.
Its a matter of having the right tool to match the job at hand.
Really? You’d trust your life to that thing on the highway? You’d be much better off spending that $6800 on a used Toyota.
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