Car crash economics

An excerpt from Andrew Frankel's Road Cars column,
MotorSport Magazine, December 2013, page 40.

"Fascinating if somewhat gruesome reading this month from Bernstein Research, in the form of the greatest loss-making model lines among European car manufacturers. Way out in front is the original Smart ForTwo which between 1997 and 2006 managed to lose Daimler-Benz a simply extraordinary ₤ 2.8 billion.  More staggering still is that this adds up to ₤ 3782 per vehicle, approximately half the car's retail price at the time.  

Then again, if you care to add up losses on a per-vehicle basis the Bugatti Veyron is in a league all by itself, unapproached I suspect by any other car in history. If you thought ₤ 1 million was a lot to ask for a  mere car, consider that for everyone sold, Volkswagen has shouldering a loss of  ₤3.9 million."

Elio Motors

Elio is not a fling. It is not a novelty.

It is the product of a mobile society naturally evolving to a more efficient and practical form of transportation.

Let’s look at the facts and realities of the world we live in:

• Gas today is at an all-time high
• Space is becoming a smaller and smaller commodity and we’re being crowded off our roads and bumped and dinged out of our parking lots
• Cars cost more than the average house did only a few decades ago

Traditional personal transportation isn’t working like it used to. We need a new way of getting around.

That’s when a car enthusiast, a visionary, a man with a dream named Paul Elio got an idea. A simple, brilliant idea. To create a vehicle for today’s generation of drivers that addressed their transportation needs and the world’s new realities.

Read more here http://www.eliomotors.com/