Crowdfunding is a virtual platform that allows individual investors of any income level to invest in an idea and Startengine.com is one such platform where you can take a punt with your hard earned cash. Elio Motors is one such start-up company that has benefited from this crowd funding platform, its just raised over $25 million dollars to make its three wheeled ‘personal transportation’ vehicle. Over 6,000 investors paid an average of $3,000 dollars to get to that $25m target. Elio Motors is the brainchild of Paul Elio an engineer by profession. But the $25m target is just the tip of the investment iceberg, Elio is actually targeting $230m dollars which is required to start production. Headquartered in Phoenix Arizona Elio Motors aims to begin production in early 2016 using a portion of the former General Motors Shreveport Operations plant. Elio plans to produce 250,000 three-wheelers per year which are set to retail at an asking price of $6k each. That’s a huge amount of vehicles to produce from scratch and what are the times scales involved to reach that target, 12 months? If it takes an established car maker years to increase production output by a few percent how is Elio Motors going to jump so high so quickly. The key selling point for the Elio is not just how cheap it is but how far it will go on a single gallon of fuel, 84mpg is what Elio Motors are quoting, from an 8-gallon fuel tank. The design specification includes a target curb weight 570 kg three-wheel anti-lock disc brakes; an inline 0.9 liter three cylinder, 55bhp engine. Power will be directed to the front-wheels and the top speed will be a claimed 100 mph with a 0-62 mph acceleration time of  approximately 9.6 seconds. The exterior has an overall length of 160.5 inches (4.08m) and an overall height of 54.2 inches. Starting any new venture is fraught with difficulty, jumping over hurdles of investor doubts is the biggest obstacle of all, if you can’t wait for the Elio then why not consider the Reliant Robin. Go on you know it makes sense.