Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal had a big announcement in early 2013.
The rising star in the Republican Party – who would later run for president and promise to boost the economy – boasted that a previously unknown automotive startup called Elio Motors would assemble its new vehicles at the former General Motors plant southwest of Shreveport.
That property had been shuttered after GM’s near collapse during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. For nearly three decades before that, thousands of workers made a variety of vehicles there, including most recently the Chevrolet Colorado pickup.
Elio Motors, based in Arizona, had promised 1,500 new jobs paying an average annual salary of $47,700, plus benefits, for a community with an unemployment rate of about 7.6% at the time.
The company generated buzz with its pledge to make a unique vehicle: a three-wheeled, 84-mpg, two-seater priced at less than $7,000.
Louisiana leaders were exhilarated.
“After the loss of GM, we made a commitment to the people of Northwest Louisiana that we would not only pursue possible alternative uses for the old GM facility, but we would also aggressively pursue new projects in the region that would create new job opportunities," Jindal said at the time in a statement released by the Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response (RACER) Trust, which had been formed to find new uses for GM's abandoned properties.
For each job Elio failed to create, the company would owe $5,000 to the trust, according to the terms of the deal negotiated with RACER.
At the end of 2020, Elio owed RACER $7.5 million for failing to create the jobs, according to Securities and Exchange Commission records.
But when the startup burst onto the scene seven years earlier, it was showered with attention from the media, prospective customers and investors.
Real estate tycoon Stuart Lichter, who joined the board of Elio Motors, was bubbling with excitement.
"Paul is either a crazy lunatic or he's the next Henry Ford," said Lichter, who also became Elio Motors' largest outside investor, board member and a lender to the company. "He's essentially reinvented the automobile industry."
But not a single vehicle has rolled off the Shreveport assembly line, and not one manufacturing job has been created.
By 2017, the patience of Shreveport officials had grown thin.
That year, former Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover wrote an editorial in the Shreveport Times saying that "betting the job-generating potential of the most modern manufacturing facility in the country on one man's Quixotic fantasy should never have happened."
Glover also lamented that the site was controlled by Lichter, whom he dubbed an "out-of-town billionaire."
Today, he's still mad.
"It certainly hasn't gotten any better," Glover, now a state lawmaker, told USA TODAY. "It was a mistake from the beginning."
Glover said there was not enough due diligence early on, and there should have been more skepticism of whether Elio Motors actually could build an incredibly fuel-efficient vehicle for such a bargain price.
"The intent had no basis in reality," Glover said. "The numbers were just simply not realistic. It not only was a startup vehicle, but it was something that was unconventional in terms of the concept."
Glover said the community has been approached by other businesses to transform the plant, but every opportunity was "filtered through Elio’s best interests instead of the community that had lost the jobs."
Other locals remain mystified.
“I don't know why they never came in and built the project," said Donna Frazier, attorney for Caddo Parish, which includes Shreveport.
Frazier referred questions to Lichter, whose company was responsible for developing the former GM site. Lichter did not return a call or email to his office.
Drew Mouton, Shreveport's economic development director, said hopes that Elio would launch production at the plant have fizzled despite the company’s announcement that it’s pivoting to an electric vehicle.
"No one around me knows anything about that. We are completely baffled," Mouton said. "They came to town and sold an idea and had a couple of presentations and had mostly folks at the parish who were excited about it. … But this is not the kind of thing that would happen now."
The Louisiana Motor Vehicle Commission ruled in July 2017 that the company had violated state law by failing to obtain licenses to manufacture or sell vehicles.
Elio appealed but eventually lost and faces fines of more than $500,000.
Soon afterward, the company acknowledged that customers may never get the vehicles despite about 65,000 mostly nonrefundable reservations worth tens of millions of dollars.
“Given the long lead times that we anticipate between current or past customer reservations and delivery on the Elio, there is a heightened risk that customers that have made reservations may not ultimately purchase their vehicles due to potential changes in customer preferences, competitive developments and other factors,” the company said in an SEC filing in August 2017.
A more recent SEC filing contained more bad news.
“We face significant barriers as we attempt to produce our first mass produced vehicle. We currently have a few drivable early prototypes of the Elio, but do not have a full production intent prototype, a final design, a built-out manufacturing facility or manufacturing processes,” the company said in its 2020 annual report.
The RACER Trust, which granted Elio Motors a $23 million loan, has repeatedly agreed to delay collecting.
“We have made it clear to Elio Motors that we expect the company to maintain its focus on raising start-up capital to fund operations in Caddo Parish and keep its commitments to the people of Caddo Parish to create jobs there,” the trust said in a statement provided to USA TODAY.
Asked whether the trust would switch gears and demand payment, spokesman Bill Callen said in an email that the trust “will continue to forbear while Elio Motors is in the process of actively seeking startup financing.”
For years, Elio Motors positioned itself as a major player in the world of transportation, issuing press releases trumpeting its relationships with major suppliers and announcing ambitious production goals that it never met.
Yet the company struggled to file paperwork on time in Arizona to keep its business operating.
Elio Motors, a week before announcing it would transition to making EVs, submitted documents with the Arizona Corporation Commission to keep its business "active" and "in good standing" after being delinquent in filing state-required annual reports since 2018.
The Corporation Commission, which licenses businesses in Arizona, said no complaints have been filed against Elio Motors, according to a spokesman.
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office, however, said it could not confirm or deny any consumer complaints against Elio Motors.
Katie Conner, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office, said “it is important for consumers to do their homework before making deposits or purchases. … We also encourage people to think twice before putting down a nonrefundable deposit, especially with new companies. Anyone who believes they’ve been a victim of consumer fraud should file a complaint with our office.”
With little staff to speak of, Elio’s prospects have long been based on its ability to continue raising money and plunging that money into its supply base.
For this series, USA TODAY contacted several major suppliers Elio announced over the years as partners in the development, manufacture and sales of its vehicle, including IAV, Roush, Bosch and Pep Boys. None agreed to discuss how much money Elio spent with them or discuss the nature of their relationship in the past or today.
But after Elio said in its September 2021 announcement that Roush had determined its move to an electric vehicle was feasible, Roush spokesperson Maureen Crowley said in an email that she “can confirm that Roush has provided support to Elio Motors in the past, but per the terms of an NDA we executed several years ago we are under an obligation to not disclose any information about the existence or nature of the relationship with Elio.”
Elio said the company’s biggest mistake was going public on the over-the-counter (OTC) market instead of the Nasdaq, which, he believes, would have expanded the scope of investors for the company and led to sufficient funding.
“Anybody involved in a project this big is going to make a lot of mistakes,” he said. “We can go back and we can recount a whole bunch of them. But if I had one do-over, I think that one do-over would change the entire trajectory of this story.”
Soon after Elio Motors’ financing dried up, Paul Elio’s personal finances took a turn for the worse, and he was sued again in Arizona.
In December 2019, Franks Law Office, Elio’s attorney, filed a lawsuit against him in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix, alleging that he owed the firm more than $850,000, plus interest and fees for nonpayment when the firm represented him in his divorce trial and appeals. At issue were parenting decisions.
Elio, who represented himself, admitted in a court filing on Jan. 24, 2020, that he owed the money. But he argued the case should go before an arbitrator.
Todd Franks, Elio's attorney, declined to comment.
Meanwhile, many of Paul Elio's depositors still want their money back or, in some cases, are holding out hope that the vehicle could become a reality.
Bev Hargraves, 70, an Arkansas insurance salesman, figured the $1,000 deposit he placed in 2013 was gone.
After several check-ins over the years, he emailed Elio Motors one more time in April 2021 to see whether there was “any chance” production would begin sometime soon.
The company never responded.
For many depositors, it has been more than five years since they put down money. If Elio somehow turns things around and succeeds in starting production, would they follow through and make the full purchase?
“Oh my gosh, I would have to have some kind of guarantee that it’s going to end up in my possession,” said James Ledingham, an entrepreneur from Casa Grande, Arizona, who also placed a nonrefundable $1,000 deposit. “I would have a hard time trusting the company.”
If it manages to gain traction, Elio Motors says, it will start production with an electric version of its car for a price of about $15,000. At that level, the Elio EV would be about half the cost of a Nissan Leaf, the most affordable mass-market electric car on the market.
“That’s a hell of a deal,” said Jim Mischel, a software engineer in Round Rock, Texas, who placed a $1,000 deposit. “Will they do it? I just don’t have enough information to say. I’m hopeful but skeptical.”
Given that many electric vehicle startups have struggled to turn their dreams into reality, Elio Motors faces enormous historical barriers.
But Paul Elio said Roush engineers confirmed recently that “this is doable” and that the company can keep most of the core design of the gas-powered prototype.
“We went to them because they did the engineering and said: ‘What is it going to take to electrify this? Can it be done, is it a big tear-up?’ And they gave us the answers,” Paul Elio said.
Elio Motors is not taking deposits for its announced EV.
For now.
“Once we’re over significant financial hurdles, we’ll probably start taking reservations because people want to get in line,” Paul Elio said. “But given where we’re at right now, I don’t think it’s wise to do that.”
USA TODAY's Nathan Bomey reported from Arlington, Virginia, and Craig Harris from Phoenix. You can follow them on Twitter @NathanBomey and @CraigHarrisUSAT. You can also subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter here for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.
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