Customers looking forward to their new fuel-efficient P5 trike made by Elio Motors will have to be patient, as first deliveries have been pushed back into next year.
While the 50,000 people who made reservations will have to wait a little longer to get their hands on the three-wheeler, the manufacturer plans to sell 100 pre-production vehicles made at the Shreveport Manufacturing Facility, in Louisiana, to fleet customers, in an attempt to generate revenue and to evaluate the three-wheeled cars under real-world driving conditions.
“We now intend to sell the first 100 pre-production vehicles built to one or more fleet customers, rather than use them for internal purposes as previously disclosed in our offering statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission“, said Paul Elio, the firm’s chief and founder.
Elio Motors targets a base price of $6,800 for the production P5, which will carry a 0.9-liter three-pot engine that should get the 3-wheeler to 60 mph (96 km/h) in 9.6 seconds and up to a top speed of more than 100 mph (160 km/h), while burning an estimated 84 mpg (2.8 lt/100 km).