Elio Motors Reportedly Pushes Launch Back Until 2018, Owing To Financial Problems

Elio Motors has delayed the launch of its planned electric 3-wheeler once again, this time until 2018, according to a recent update by the company posted on its Facebook page. It should be remembered that the company had originally planned to have its electric trikes on the road by 2015 (the company was founded in 2009).

Why the delay? The company is apparently having some financial problems, according to some reports. Of course, some in the industry have claimed for years that the whole thing is a scam and that the trike would never be mass produced. (See extensive list of background articles — including some exclusives — on the bottom of this article.)

Here’s more from Autoblog: “As of September 30th, the company had $101,317 in cash, down from $6.87 million at the beginning of last year. And while it has collected $24.8 million in non-refundable customer deposits, the company also had $30.7 million in current liabilities, up from $20.2 million at the beginning of the year. Through September 30th, the company’s net loss widened to $34.8 million from $13.9 million a year.”

It’s hard to tell what exactly to make of those figures, without more context anyways, but they don’t look particularly good.

In related news, Elio Motors reservation holders are beginning to sue the company:

With bad financial news coming out of Elio Motors’ official SEC filings and even more announced delays in production of the Elio three-wheeler, many reservation-holders are getting sick of waiting. They’re so sick of waiting, in fact, that at least one Elio “owner” has decided to take the company to court in a bid to get his money back.

Reddit user jimmybob479 announced on the popular message board that he had filed a lawsuit against Elio Motors in his home state. His original post read, “I looked up their registered agent in my state, filed a small claims lawsuite with my local justice of the peace and paid to have a constable serve the papers to their registered agent. Anyone else done this yet?”

That last question opened up the floor to other commenters, who said things like, “They (Elio Motors) deserve all the hellfire that will soon be directed against them. They still don’t appear to have an actual prototype on the roads now seven years after the debut of P2 in February 2010, which is when they began making these fantastic claims,” and “They might not even have enough money in the bank to pay you back your deposit.”

The company has reportedly taken more than 60,000 reservations to date. Is Elio Motors ever going to actually release a product? More and more people are getting as skeptical as our own Jo Borras was back in 2013.

Related stories by year:

2017

• Sick of Waiting: Elio Motors Trike “Owners” Start Filing Lawsuits

2016

• SEC Filing: Elio Motors Millions in Debt With No Way Out?
• Gov’t Officials to Tour Elio Motors Factory Looking for Answers
• Up Close and Personal With the Elio Motors Prototype

2015

• Fishy Investors, New Tenants Bad News for Elio Motors
• Elio Production Delayed Again, This Time Until “Mid 2016”
• Elio Motors Shows Off its Engine, For Realsies

2014

• Elio Motors Has a Town Hall Meeting, I Go To It
• Elio Motors Q+A w/ Paul Elio … the A Part
• Elio Motors Finally Responds … What’s Next? You Decide!

2013

• Paul Elio Gets Taxpayers to Buy Him a GM Plant in Shreveport
• The Elio Motors Saga: If it Looks Like a Dale and Quacks Like a Dale …
• Financials Show that Elio Motors is Really, Definitely, Not Gonna Happen
• Op-Ed: Elio Motors Thinks it Can Sell This 3-wheeler. It Can’t.