In this particular case, the test bike must validate two things:

The design of the bike that completely changed since the prototypes made for the Kickstarter campaign, i.e how does that bike ride, is it stable, safe, how is the cyclist placed on the bike, does it fit and is it comfortable for all cyclists sizes...

The manufacturing of the bike, i.e is it strong enough, is it reliable, what is the real weight vs. what was computed...

For the first goal, test bikes could be manually built.

But not for the second that requires to have the bike built with the production equipment, especially for the reliability that depends on the titanium welding process (but this will be difficult to validate as titanium welding problems do not appear immediately, it takes time for the oxidation to make the welding break).

Helix is a risky project that combines the risk of bicycle (bad) design and titanium (bad) manufacturing and added to those two high risks the challenge of making a cheap titanium bike.

Another company Seattle Cycle making another titanium folding bike, decided to reduce the risk by using Lynskey, an experienced titanium bike manufacturer, to build the frame with as consequence a much higher (but inline with the titanium bike market) price.