Bull Dog, have you seen modern cars? Even econoboxes are loaded with tech and features, and many have tons of options like heated seats. They are highly scrutinized in costs but the industry really is not producing bare bones Saturn/Geo type of ultra basic commuter cars any more. At least not in the U.S. They might elsewhere but those will be different markets.
Gas at 2 or 4 or 10 dollars a gallon I'm not driving one of these. If your 'hobby' is seeing how far you can go while saving the environment then great. Everyone else, buy a used Civic. If you have a job so far away that the 80 MPG is a real bonus, but you can only afford one of these -- then get a new job, the commute is obviously not worth it.
This is a cool experiment, concept, whatever, but not required for the masses just yet. We still have some oil left in the world.
Who says it has to be either of those things? Anyone who needs 85MPG to be able to afford to commute obviously is SOL since it isn't possible to have this yet. Some people would just like to be able to cut down on fuel costs. I have a 30-40 mile commute 5 days a week and would love a vehicle like this. It'd only save me maybe $50 a month in gas (well actually more since more, my current vehicle gets horrible gas mileage, but even if I had a car that got 30-40mpg it'd save $50 a month), but that's still $600 by the end of the year. Its not a requirement for anyone. That's a silly way to look at this. Obviously this is not a mass audience vehicle yet (even if it was more widely readily available it wouldn't be that).
I get the pessimism as I was the same way with Tesla. I thought the Roadster was nothing special, but the Model S is actually impressive (it is more luxurious, has more utility, looks better, is built better, has more features, and performance is not terribly far off and in some respects is actually better; all of that for less money). I don't know if they'll be able to meet their goals, but getting even kinda close (60mpg for $10K for instance) would be impressive to me. That's not to say I'd run out and buy one as it'd depend on other factors, but I'd be very interested. I'm sure over time they'd add more features and improve things.
From the outset this will be a niche vehicle and obviously isn't for everyone (or even most people very probably), but it definitely could have wide appeal if it delivers its potential and doesn't have any major problems. And yes, obviously it needs to actually get made first.
Also, yes, a used Prius for 10-15K would be a lot better solution (and good enough MPG) for probably most people.
That is not accurate. I'm a reservation holder for an Elio #12436 in Maine. The body panels of the Elio are SMC, the same material Corvette uses, and the same material used by the US Armed Services for shipping containers, it's a very strong material. The current, and last prototype "P5" is fully functional and actually has Elio's new engine designed by McLaren (yes that McLaren) and IAV who also built it. At least 47,000 other people like me indeed believe it's worth $6,800. Their are a number of contributing factors to how Elio Motors is able to produce a vehicle for the MSRP they are targeting; it has fewer parts than a car, they are utilizing no new technology though they are fully exploiting existing technology, they have designed the vehicle with their parts suppliers, and their business model is not based on inflating the cost by adding extras which are not wanted/needed. While I would agree economy of scale is essential for getting prices down, that is not a motivator for large manufacturers if they are publicly traded, their main objective is to charge as much as the market can bear to pay. Elio Motors is owned and controlled by Paul Elio, which has its own challenges in raising the vast amount of capital necessary for mass vehicle production, however because he is not beholden to a board of directors as a publically traded company is, he is fully able to direct returns e.g. the customer can et a rock bottom price as a trade off the investors return may not be so high, though if sales volume happens to be stellar there would probably be a very respectable return for investors.
No actually it is not
that McLaren (as in the one that makes the P1). It is an American company that was created by Bruce McLaren (yes
that Bruce McLaren), but is not tied to the McLaren most people are aware of these days. I don't know if they're even involved any more though. They allegedly were going to supply the engine but that was 5 years ago or so and I haven't seen anything about their involvement since. IAV is developing the engine.
And they do have some impressive suppliers and people working on this project that have real experience in the industry. But you need to get your facts straight as well.
Also, um no economies of scale might be the biggest motivator for large car companies. It is why they do stuff like platform sharing (and rebadging). Because it is such a driving force they even co-operate with competitors to co-develop platforms and vehicles in order to achieve better economies of scale. Likewise, the dependence on economies of scale to function is why they needed bailouts (and why Ford and Toyota gave testimony supporting GM and Chrysler getting bailed out, because the industry is so dependent on it that if they had gone under and taken out suppliers it would have also likely taken Ford and Toyota down as well, to say nothing of all the other small companies like Mazda and Subaru that basically couldn't exist without the economies of scale provided by the industry).