Elio Motors

Elio Motors is based in Phoenix, Arizona, and projected in 2017 that manufacturing could take place at a facility in Shreveport, Louisiana, using a portion of the former General Motors 3.2 million-square-foot plant. Production would have employed upwards of 1,500 people at the Shreveport facility plus an additional 1,500 at the supply base, but will not be occurring. In addition, Elio Motors projected that 90% of parts for its vehicle could originate in North America.

The idea of 100 pre-production fleet vehicles was teased in December 2016, however social media replies on Nov 1, 2017, from Elio Motors said, "We are targeting the start of production in 2019". The potential service provider for Elio Motors is Pep Boys. The company started accepting customer reservations on its website in January 2013 and stopped accepting reservations at 65,341 in 2017. On August 3, 2017, Elio filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to have an initial public offering (IPO) for its common stock in order to raise $100 million in capital. In the filing, it said that their vehicle would not be capable of production until approximately 76 weeks after securing enough funding to begin.

Criticism

Elio Motors had continuously delayed the release date, which was originally in 2012. Since then, the date has been pushed back each year. In December 2016, the date was announced to have moved to 2018, and on Nov 1, 2017 in a Facebook reply, Elio Motors mentioned the start of production aimed for 2019. These dates made automotive analysts question the company's ability to bring a product to market. Critics have drawn comparisons to the Lit Motors C-1 and Aptera Motors, which had similar production schemes requiring more funding than was attainable, while updating production timelines to give the impression that a product was deliverable. In an effort to secure a Department of Energy loan, Elio offered advance reservations where the buyer can reserve a spot in line to possibly purchase a vehicle for a base price of US$7,450.

By the end of 2017, Elio had only US$7,155 in the bank, and deficits of US$49,674,327. Elio's own estimate was that an investment of US$376,600,000 plus an additional US$110,500,000 in reservation deposits would be necessary in order to go into production. Throughout 2018 and beyond, reservation deposits remained closed, and there was no concrete plan in place to raise the nearly half-billion dollars to proceed. Despite a lack of transparency as to their path forward, Elio announced a December 2019 production date, which passed with no progress.

In January 2019, Elio stated: "The production date is estimated to be 76 weeks from the timely and successful completion of our current and subsequent fundraising efforts. The timing and availability of the funds can move and we will do everything we can to keep the project moving forward by utilizing each piece of funding received, as we receive it."

This lack of an actual product over a near-decade long span caused critics in 2013 to call their car vaporware.

The Elio web site blog and press release areas were not updated between December 2019 and September 9, 2021, when a redesigned website emerged and announced the company's intention to produce an electric motor version of their three-wheeled vehicle at double the cost. The Elio Motors Facebook page was similarly left without updates between April 2019 and September 9, 2021. Neither the blog nor the Facebook page were being updated in the nearly two years period. In January 2024 the website disappeared and attempts to access it were met with a "404 Not Found" error page, which shortly afterwards was replaced with a page which said "eliomotors.com has expired and is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com". In February 2024 the domain was put up for sale on GoDaddy Auctions. The auction attracted bids of several thousand dollars, but by the beginning of April 2024 the Elio Motors website was available again at eliomotors.com. By 2025, however, the website was mostly empty and inactive, returning 403, 404, and Access Denied errors from all links on the virtually empty homepage. As of June 2026, the website now appears to be owned by an online European casino with no reference to Elio Motors aside from the url.