More Than 27,000 People Put Down Money to Buy Elio Car

We are still waiting for production to begin, but 27,000 people have made reservations to buy an Elio three-wheeled car.

Elio Motors hopes to revolutionize transportation with its tiny car, with a starting price of $6,800, it’s also less than half the cost of most cars.

Elio plans to start making the cars next fall at the old  General Motors plant in Shreveport. Elio wants to make 250,000 cars a year by 2016. 

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.

The Elio’s two seats sit front and back instead of side by side, so the driver is positioned in the center with the passenger directly behind. That arrangement, plus the low seating position — the Elio is just 54 inches tall — and the lack of power steering takes a little getting used to..

Elio keeps the costs down in several ways. The car only has one door, on the left side, which shaves a few hundred dollars off the manufacturing costs. Having three wheels also makes it cheaper. It will be offered in just two configurations — with a manual or automatic transmission — and it has standard air conditioning, power windows and door locks and an AM/FM radio. More features, such as navigation or blind-spot detection, can be ordered through Elio’s long list of suppliers.

Elio will also save money by selling the cars directly through its own stores and not through franchised dealers, similar to electric car maker Tesla Motors. Elio plans stores in 60 major metropolitan areas. They’ll be serviced by car repair chain Pep Boys.

A $1,000 reservation locks in a confirmed position on the company’s non-refundable reservation list for a vehicle. Lesser reservations of $500, $250 and $100 are available for positions further and further down the line.

Paul Elio, a one-time stockbroker and New York City cab driver, dreamed as a kid that he would one day own a car company called Elio Motors.

“As I matured, I decided that was as likely as playing in the NFL,” Elio said. But he did earn an engineering degree at General Motors Institute — now Kettering University — and started his own company engineering products like children’s car seats.

In 2008, tired of high gas prices and the country’s dependence on foreign oil, he started working on a fuel-efficient car. Equally important to him was creating U.S. manufacturing jobs and making the car inexpensive enough to appeal to buyers who might otherwise be stuck in old, unreliable clunkers.

“Whatever matters to you, this can move the needle on it,” he said.

The recession killed his engineering company, but it also provided the opportunity to buy the Shreveport plant when GM filed for bankruptcy protection.

That purchase came after Elio first identified a GM plant in Pontiac, Michigan, as the site where he wanted to build the vehicles. At the time, he was calling the three-wheeled vehicles the “Trikke.”

In March 2010, Elio told the media about his plans to open a manufacturing facility in Michigan, saying it would create 2,100 jobs. But the plant was never built.

Elio Motors plans to employ 1,500 people at the plant in Shreveport. The Caddo Parish Industrial Development Board acquired the former GM plant in January in anticipation of Elio leasing space there for its production.

Production had been slated to start by March but was delayed to the fall, with a funding delay sited as the reason.

The company has also applied for a $185 million advanced vehicle development loan from the U.S. Department of Energy.