Originally published at: DeLorean teases new electric car | Boing Boing
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Details on the incentive packages were not disclosed.
If a package doesn’t contain either a flux capacitor and a Mr. Fusion or at least 25 kilos of cocaine it’s not gonna fly (yes, ISWIDT).
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Haha - Elijah Wood there
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Yes, and then they’re going to go into production in 2013. If it was any other type of car I would be doubtful that they could hit that production date. Pretty neat what you can do with the right technology!
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The original DeLorean company also benefited from “incentive packages”.
DeLorean also sought lucrative incentives from governments and economic organizations to pay for manufacturing facilities by looking to build his first factory in an area of particularly high unemployment. The Republic of Ireland’s then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Desmond O’Malley, TD, decided not to support the project. A deal in Puerto Rico was about to be agreed when DeLorean took up an offer from the Industrial Development Board for Northern Ireland (IDB). Besides some early seed capital from Hollywood stars, the DeLorean Motor Company relied on the British Government for about $120 million of its $200 million startup costs according to The Times. The British Government was keen to create jobs in Northern Ireland to reduce sectarian violence. DeLorean was under the impression that the British Government, as part of this offer, would provide his company with Export Credit financing. This would provide a loan of 80% of the wholesale cost of the vehicles (US$20,000) upon completion and delivery for shipping.
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I mean…the company has been selling tshirts and hoodies for the past twenty years, so it’s really not a big step to selling cars.
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Unless it comes with a working hoverboard, I’ll pass:
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No Flux, no Papasan.
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The must have leapfrogged LiOn to some sort of ultra capacitor technology to be able to generate 1.21 jigowatts of power.
The range on this must be phenomenal.
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The existing DMC has been selling parts and even full bodies and frames left over from the original production since the mid 90’s. IRRC they’ve completed at least a few “new” cars from those old parts over the years. Though I don’t think they own any of the original tooling, which might not even exist at this point. But I believe they still make parts, and like upgraded engine kits and such.
They were supposed to be gearing up low run “replica” releases after a regulatory change clarifying safety requirements for low volume vehicles. Basically they’re allowed to use new bodies and update some things without doing the full suite of safety testing and standards if they stay below a 300ish car threshold.
So it’s not all that far from ramping that plan to getting into EVs.
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I am curios, but cautios.
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I did not know…
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Yeah todays DMC is basically the company that bought their parts stock and remaining vehicles post bankruptcy. Set up to service the enthusiasts. IIRC they just grabbed the names and trademarks and started picking up whatever physical product was still out there over time.
There’s quite a lot of that with vintage cars. Like there’s a guy in, I think, Chicago who bought the entire contents of an Chevy parts factory or something. And he’s the only place you can get new old stock parts for vintage Corvettes.
And there’s what used to be an aerospace machine shop near where I grew up. Used to make stuff for Grumman, like bearings and small run high precision stuff. When the plant nearby shut down they started custom machining replacement parts for vintage cars and aircraft. They’re like a go to “replica” part maker for certain kinds of vintage cars now.
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There is a 200 unit limit on the vast majority of the testing (which isn’t to say there isn’t also a limit at 300 for some things they find too burdensome, and the 200 limit is something the tests don’t “time out” on?).
Yep, and also interesting (to me) Revology bought the rights to make some old Ford and Shelby models that Ford doesn’t want to deal with. The prices are, um, sky high though for newly produced 1960s/1970s models!
Step 1. Buy up old property for penny’s on the dollar.
Step 2. Hype it up, let people know it’s back, and ready to take on all challengers.
Step 3. Keep convincing investors something is going to happen and a lot of money is going to be made.
Step 4. Release fancy concept images or teasers every 5-10 years to let people (i.e. investors) know your product is still around and ready to take their money!
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A production start in 2013 doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem for a company that makes time travelling cars
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But will it have a Mr. Fusion?
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I forget the details. But whatever the limit was previous you had to do testing for each model year or some such. Basically made it untenable to make low production runs cars for anything but off road or track only use. They changed the law in in like 2015 so that up 325 cars a year there’s a more limited safety standard on you only have to test it once if you don’t make major changes.
Then there wasn’t anything on the regulatory side to actually make that happen, DeLorean and few others sued a couple years back and it actually took effect in 2020 or 2021. It basically means the difference between finishing cars from bodies/frames that were already made and got vin at least 25 years ago. And being able to manufacture new units of old models and add updates.
Kind of this weird edge case that mostly hit companies like DeLorean.
There’s a few companies of that sort out there. On the more basic end reproduction bodies are dropped onto a modern car as a sort of resto-mod without anything original. Revology says they have their own platform to do that with, but the fact that Ford will warranty them makes me think they’re dropping those repro bodies on something from Ford.
Which would skate on a lot of the testing. If it’s an existing safe and tested car that’s modified you’re good. Same deal kit cars. Kinda what had certain other companies pushing for an update.
It also looks like they’ve made less than 200 cars total since 2015. Less “Ford doesn’t want to deal with” than “Ford has absolutely no interest in a market that small”. Revology almost looks more like a custom coachbuilder.
I dunno if they’re still doing it. But Shelby themselves were doing the finish old cars bit for a very long time. They had lot of old bodies and unfinished frames for Cobras. And they were putting out “real” Cobras from that old stock for decades.
IIRC they were one of the other companies stumping for a change here. Cause pretty much everyone in that space ran out of cars that were finished enough to be technically vintage.
All of this stuff is insanely expensive. Because the target market is people for whom an already insanely expensive vintage car just isn’t good or rare enough.
