For the first time last week I got to see an Elio in person.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To recap, the Elio is a two-seater (tandem) vehicle that drives like a car but, because it has less than four wheels, is legally classified as a motorcycle. It has a traditional gasoline engine under the hood, and due to the vehicle’s aerodynamics combined with its low (1,200 lb) weight, it gets 84\/mpg. It also has a five star safety rating. The Elio, designed and built here in the United States, will go on sale in 2016 for $6,800.<\/p>\n

If you want to read more about the Elio, I wrote a more in depth article<\/a> a while ago.<\/p>\n

Elio is taking both refundable and non-refundable reservations in amounts of $100, $250, $500 and $1,000. If you make a refundable down payment and the car doesn’t make it to market, you get a refund. Those making non-refundable reservations will get their cars first, and will also get 1.5x their reservation price off the cost of the vehicle. All those with non-refundable reservations will get their cars first and in the order of the size of the donation.<\/p>\n

I’m currently in the non-refundable $100 reservation group, which puts me in the fourth group. I’ve considered upgrading, but as a bigger guy, I have concerns as to how comfortable the Elio would be (or if I would even fit inside one).<\/p>\n

Occasionally the Elio team travels around the country showing off the Elio. Last week I was finally able to see one in person and actually sit inside.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wahoo — I fit! The front of the Elio is actually very comfortable. <\/p>\n

Here’s a picture of Susan in the front with Mason in the back.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Perhaps to make the front appear even roomier the driver’s seat is pushed all the way back, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for the rear passenger. My son, age thirteen, is 5’8″ and felt cramped. <\/p>\n

None of the pictures I took show how small the trunk actually is. It’s small. The trunk’s measurements are 27″x14″x10″. For comparison, American Airlines allows 22″x14″9″ for carry on bags. Essentially you’ll have enough room back there for one carry one bag and a couple of sandwiches or something. If you’re planning on travelling solo, the rear seat folds down flush with the trunk and you can take more stuff with you. If you’re planning a two man trip… I don’t know what you’ll do. Every night I sleep using a CPAP, and when I travel I take it with me. It’s a carry on bag of its own, leaving no room for baggage at all if Susan and I were to take an overnight trip. There are talks of aftermarket saddlebags or a roof rack, both of which would affect the Elio’s slick lines and aerodynamics, but the trade off would be more storage. Bottom line, it appears to me the Elio will function as a two-person “around town” vehicle or a one-person road-trip vehicle.<\/p>\n

Currently I am holding a reservation spot with a $100 down payment, but based on what I saw I am thinking about upgrading to the maximum $1,000 spot. My only trepidation at the moment is that the car was originally slated for a 2014 release date and it has already been pushed back 2 1\/2 years to mid-2016… and with where I would end up in line I most likely wouldn’t see mine until 2017, if the car ships at all. $100 isn’t much to hold a spot for a car that might eventually see the market, but $1,000 is a serious investment. Decisions, decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time last week I got to see an Elio in person. To recap, the Elio is a two-seater (tandem) vehicle that drives like a car but, because it has less than four wheels, is legally classified as a motorcycle. It has a traditional gasoline engine under the hood, and due to the vehicle’s aerodynamics combined with its low (1,200 lb) weight, it gets 84\/mpg. It also has a five star safety rating. The Elio, designed and built here in the United States, will go on sale in 2016 for $6,800. If you want to read more about… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}