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Comment by initramfs | Hacker News Reader

The U.S should loan Elio Motors to produce their electric car and offer a $7500 tax credit. Then the cost of it would be $7500 after rebates. If the company can't deliver, The U.S could seize the company and sell the car themselves. They already sell a public-health option for insurance. Then they could copy the solar panels from Aptera and add those to the Elio's roof.

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I doubt the US wants to be in the business of selling cars. Definitely not its strong suit

It would serve the public interest, as there aren't many affordable cars under $20,000. Chevy got out of the Spark production last year. If the economy can't produce enough jobs to afford rent, how do people expect to get to work? The Cash for Clunkers program at least got dangerously old cars off the road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System

USA isn't really known for seizing companies and nationalizing them. It would just force a sale to another USA company.

Except Elio has struggled for 15 years to release a car. It needs a receivership, not one that permanently owns it, unless they are just deliberately playing with investors.

Elio can't still be around can it?

It lives: https://www.eliomotors.com/

I remember my dad put a preorder deposit in for this when I was in high school, with his idea being it would be the perfect vehicle for me to commute around a college campus several years later. I am now approaching 30 and from what I recall of Elio's website when I looked at it then, it looks like they've made a lot of progress in offering the vehicle in additional colors.

technically they've added an electric option, and postponed the gas option indefinitely. Part of the reason it isn't popular enough is that there isn't enough demand. The gas option could use an opposed piston for even better fuel economy than 84mpg.

So there is still hope to see their weird tandem Ford Focus someday!

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