http://registerguard.com/rg/business/33658762-63/eugene-electrical-vehicle-firm-says-its-product-is-ready-to-go-to-market.html.csp Eugene electrical vehicle firm says its product is ready to go to market Nov. 1, 2015 Sherri Buri McDonald
[images / Kelly Lyon/The Register-Guard http://registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.common.streams.StreamServer.cls?STREAMOID=3fNjYiJUBZEPXbHBSB23Cc$daE2N3K4ZzOUsqbU5sYuTkL8cht2iMG1wLvPCzpwOWCsjLu883Ygn4B49Lvm9bPe2QeMKQdVeZmXF$9l$4uCZ8QDXhaHEp3rvzXRJFdy0KqPHLoMevcTLo3h8xh70Y6N_U_CryOsw6FTOdKL_jpQ-&CONTENTTYPE=image/jpeg Previous generations of Arcimoto's electric vehicle sit in a showroom in Eugene's Whiteaker district http://registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.common.streams.StreamServer.cls?STREAMOID=B1qg2DqwvLXTv7RTz2MBCs$daE2N3K4ZzOUsqbU5sYsKYGkWyEw0DTNBNUssK0lIWCsjLu883Ygn4B49Lvm9bPe2QeMKQdVeZmXF$9l$4uCZ8QDXhaHEp3rvzXRJFdy0KqPHLoMevcTLo3h8xh70Y6N_U_CryOsw6FTOdKL_jpQ-&CONTENTTYPE=image/jpeg Arcimoto President Mark Frohnmayer drives his electric vehicle up to Skinner Butte. “It’s incredibly fun to drive,” he says ] After eight long years in development, the Arcimoto electric vehicle is ready to go to market, founder and President Mark Frohnmayer says. The Eugene company plans to unveil its newest version of the two-seat, three-wheeled electric vehicle here in its hometown on Nov. 14 and then show it off in other parts of the country, he said. Frohnmayer said he already has 150 orders — almost all through the Internet — and is looking for more “pioneer customers.” He plans to begin pilot production of 50 vehicles by mid-2016 at Arcimoto’s shop in Eugene’s eclectic Whiteaker neighborhood. Frohnmayer expects Arcimoto to outgrow the 5,000-square-foot shop fairly soon, so he’s looking for 50,000 square feet of production space — with a “strong preference” that it be in the Eugene area. If sales take off like he projects, the company, which employs 17 people now, could grow to several hundred employees by 2018-19, Frohnmayer predicted. Local officials like the sound of Arcimoto’s plans to help rebuild the county’s manufacturing sector, which took a drubbing during the Great Recession. “We lost 7,700 jobs in manufacturing during the recession; we’ve gained back 800,” local labor economist Brian Rooney said. “Those are generally high-paying jobs ... so sure, that would be great to get some of those manufacturing jobs back,” he said. Rooney is with the state Employment Department. In addition, Arcimoto sources parts from many local suppliers, from metal fabricators to leather vendors, Frohnmayer said. That network of secondary industries also could have a positive impact on the local economy, Rooney said. Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy called recent developments at Arcimoto “very exciting.” “I’ve certainly tracked the evolution of Arcimoto over the years,” she said. “The city and the county have worked to make loan resources available to Arcimoto as it has grown and developed its product. We’ve always been very hopeful it would grow into something that would be a good transportation option for people, be affordable for people, and would come from Eugene.” “Two or three (design generations) back I took a spin in it,” Piercy said. “I thought it was really good then, and I know they’ve been refining it and making it better and better.” There are plenty of “ifs” in the scenario Frohnmayer lays out. But he said he believes his team has hit on the right capabilities and features for a zippy vehicle tailor-made for short trips around town. “Our goal is to check all the boxes for the daily driver and do so at a price point that let’s everybody participate,” Frohnmayer said. “We’re not going to get to a sustainable transportation system if the price is out of reach (for) ordinary consumers,” he said. “Generation 8” arrives After a recent design revamp that ditched the steering wheel and pedals for a motorcycle handlebar-style control system — shaving 19 inches off the vehicle’s length and dropping 700 pounds — Arcimoto’s “Generation 8 does finally tick all the boxes,” he said. The Arcimoto is compact enough that three of them can fit nose to the curb in a typical parking spot, yet roomy enough that it can carry two people and groceries, he said. “It’s light, but stable, traveling 70 miles on a charge,” Frohnmayer said. Arcimoto also offers a 130-mile option for people with longer commutes. The base model sells for $11,900 — a fully loaded one with weather protective panels and other add-ons runs $20,000 — and “it’s incredibly fun to drive,” Frohnmayer said. “It’s what you would pay for a watercraft or a decent motorcycle,” he said. “Instead of being a toy, it has daily utility.” A recent Wired article described the newest Arcimoto SRK as the “spawn of a golf cart and an ATV.” Frohnmayer said he thinks of it more as “the beautiful, biracial love child” of a Ducati Italian motorcycle and a Side by Side off-road vehicle. The vehicle has special seatbelt restraints that meet in an X across the chest, but no helmets or other safety equipment will be required to operate one, he said. (He wears a helmet when piloting the “engineering test mule” featured in the accompanying video.) In Oregon, only a car driver’s license is required to drive an Arcimoto. Some states, however, require a motorcycle endorsement. Attracting venture capital As Arcimoto swings into pilot production in the middle of next year, the company also will be trying to raise tens of millions of dollars to support its growth. When Frohnmayer initially approached venture capitalists in 2009, he said one warned him he would never get venture funding. Venture capital had all but dried up after the recession, so Frohnmayer turned to private angel investors to match the $2 million seed money he had put in the company. (Frohnmayer and several partners sold their Eugene computer game development company GarageGames to InterActive Corp. in 2007 for an undisclosed amount.) “Coming out of the success of my first startup, I thought I’d try again in a different industry,” he said. Arcimoto eventually did attract venture capital. A venture fund run by Bill Hambrecht, formerly with Hambrecht & Quist, the San Francisco investment firm that backed initial public offerings for the likes of Apple Computer and Amazon.com, recently invested $2 million in Arcimoto, Frohnmayer said. In addition to pitching to institutional investors, Arcimoto is interested in the Regulation A JOBS, or Jumpstart Our Business Startups, Act that allows for smaller-scale public stock offerings of up to $50 million. “The JOBS Act democratizes access to early-stage investing,” Frohnmayer said. “The JOBS Act opens up that playing field to a lot more players and lets ordinary folks invest in things they believe in.” Vision to have impact Eight years ago, Frohnmayer, 41, began his quest for a comfortable, affordable, sustainable alternative to driving a 2-ton machine just to get to work or to pick up a gallon of milk, he said. “It always really bothered me that there was no solution,” he said. When asked why he has doggedly pursued this goal for nearly a decade — the longest he has ever worked on a single project — he answered, “my empty driveway.” “With any project, enthusiasm waxes and wanes,” Frohnmayer said. “What has been a continuous motivator is looking in my driveway and realizing there still isn’t an Arcimoto in it.” Meanwhile, evidence of climate change continues to mount and the need for more environmentally sustainable transportation becomes increasingly urgent, he said. “There’s not another project I can think of where I can have the same level of impact,” Frohnmayer said. [© ] ... https://www.arcimoto.com/ Arcimoto For EVLN EV-newswire posts use: http://evdl.org/evln/ {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-150-Internet-EV-orders-and-hungry-for-more-pioneer-customers-tp4678495.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
