https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2019/09/19/arcimoto-launches-ev-production-at-eugene-plant.html Arcimoto launches EV production at Eugene plant Sep 19, 2019 Pete Danko
[images https://media.bizj.us/view/img/11452157/evergreen-first-delivery-6*1200xx2400-1350-0-225.jpg The first Evergreen Edition FUV off the production line at Arcimoto's Eugene factory, shown here, was a long time coming / Arcimoto https://media.bizj.us/view/img/10950482/arcimoto-manfacturing-plant-2018-mark-frohmeyer*xx3648-3648-912-0.jpg Mark Frohnmayer founded Arcimoto in 2007 and took it public in 2017 / Cathy Cheney https://media.bizj.us/view/img/10950430/arcimoto-manfacturing-plant-2018-assembllly*999xx4864-3648-304-0.jpg Arcimoto began setting up its Eugene factory two years ago, and has been making beta models there / Cathy Cheney ] The first Evergreen Edition FUV off the production line at Arcimoto's Eugene factory, ... was a long time coming. They’ll come off the assembly line slowly at first, but Arcimoto Inc. has at long last begun building and delivering regular-production vehicles, the Eugene company announced on Thursday. Mark Frohnmayer, who founded the electric vehicle company in 2007, called it “the most significant milestone in the company’s history to date,” but added that Arcimoto was “just getting to the starting line” in a mission to transform the transportation sector. The company has made several prototypes and a few dozen beta vehicles over the years, but this marks the beginning of what it calls "retail series" production at the factory it began outfitting in 2017. The immediate plan, Frohnmayer said, is to turn out one electric three-wheeler a day, building to “a steady rate of about 100 a month” within the next few months. Earlier this year, 100 customers put down $5,000 nonrefundable deposits toward the $19,900 Evergreen Edition Fun Utility Vehicle. Arcimoto said it will begin taking more deposits shortly, working through a list of more than 4,000 people who have paid $100 (refundable) to get in the queue. The vehicles they’ll get will come with an EPA-rated range of 102.5 miles, Frohnmayer said, and deliver the equivalent of 173.7 miles per gallon in city driving. That's based on how far a vehicle can travel on 33.7 kilowatt-hours of electricity, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. Although technically classified as a motorcycle, the FUV seats two and has room for cargo, allowing it to essentially function as a car. “I believe that it will be the most efficient vehicle in the market suitable for the wide range of everyday driving trips,” Frohnmayer said. [image] Arcimoto went through more than a half-dozen prototypes, including this one shown in Portland several years ago. Andy Giegerich | Sustainable Business Oregon Frohnmayer spent nearly a decade struggling to find the revolutionary design he was looking for. It needed to be small, maneuverable and fun, but still able to travel at highway speeds. It needed to be simple to make and cheap; the goal remains to get the base price down to around $12,000. By September 2017, he'd made enough progress to take the company public, netting the enterprise more than $18 million to work with. At the time, the goal was to be producing 2,000 vehicles annually by the end of 2018. The timeline shifted out when the company decided to accelerate factory capital investments, trading early production for a more vertically integrated operation. Subsequent targets also fell by the wayside, occasionally frustrating customers and investors. But the company has been able to continue to raise capital, helping support a growing workforce now at 98 and giving it time to overcome one hurdle after another. More capital will be needed to grow the company, but at least revenue will soon be arriving. As Frohnmayer said, “There is a magic moment in a startup when the revenue box goes non-zero.” [© bizjournals.com] For EVLN EV-newswire posts use: http://evdl.org/archive/ {brucedp.neocities.org} -- Sent from: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/ _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/index.html INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
