Elio Motors Wants To Make An 84MPG Car for $6,800

Well, technically it isn’t a car… by law, it is a motorcycle.  This is both good, and bad.  The good, at least in California, you get to use the carpool lane without any of those lame DMV stickers.  The bad is that some states will require the driver to get a motorcycle license.  Before we get to excited about this three wheel vehicle, let’s pour out some kool-aid for the late Aptera.

This, unnamed, car by Elio Motors is a dream of Paul Elio.  Hopefully his dream plays out as he sees it.  If it does, this 3-wheeled “car” will get 84MPG on the highway, 49MPG in the city, will cost just $6,800, and will launch mid 2015.  Read on for details, videos, and pictures of this Elio Motors Car.

The idea of the Elio Motors vehicle is pretty straight forward… a very lightweight car with a 55-hp 3-cylinder engine (designed by IAV) that gets great mileage.  The MPG numbers that are quoted today are 84mpg highway and 49mpg city.  Hopefully the can keep, or improve, these numbers if/when they get to production.  Elio Motors has moved into the old GM plant in Louisiana.

For full disclosure I like cars (a bit too much) and have quite a few including a Tesla Model S and a Prius.  I mention these cars because while I like cars that are unique and/or high performance, I also like cars that are highly efficient.  This is also why I was an early deposit maker for the Aptera which never made it to production.  Luckily I got my deposit back.

My first instinct was to put a deposit down for the Elio Motors Car, but then I watched their marketing material and read some of their information website pages.  After that, I wasn’t so confident in them as a new company.  For example – watch these promotional videos which I think are a bit lame to be honest.

You can watch more of the Elio Motors videos here.  Also… this deposit page is ridiculous (pictured below).  It sounds more like the ice cream sizes at Cold Stone Creamery (Like it, Love it, Gotta have it).

Some might think I am being a bit unreasonable in avoiding purchasing a car because their website, videos, and documentation is a bit amateur hour… but it all adds up. If their attention to detail is this bad this early in the game, how good/bad will it be by the time they start building this vehicle? Who knows? Not me. But I am willing to wait and see before pulling out my wallet. I hope they make a great product!