A Look Into 2019 For The Fun Utility Vehicle Maker Arcimoto

Arcimoto has had a wild ride over the past decade — from a simple idea to deliverables this year. The startup is about to cross the threshold into company status and looks forward to 2019 as a decisive year.

Arcimoto Braces For The Startup-To-Company Jump

Arcimoto’s roadmap for the future and its first retail Fun Utility Vehicle (FUV), its electric three-wheeler, looks favorable. The startup built up its factory, beefed up its team, and put out two dozen beta FUVs into the wild in 2018.

2019 is shaping up to be the deciding year after a decade in the making according to our last phone conversation with Mark Frohnmayer, Arcimoto President and Founder.

Nine more test vehicles will be built over the next two months using the company’s new manufacturing capabilities. The Series A-2 “Release Candidate” prototypes will go through final testing for quality, reliability, longevity, and compliance for the final Series A-3 Retail FUVs due this quarter.

Arcimoto plans to deliver its FUVs throughout the US as pre-orders by the end of Q1 of 2020, with international deliveries to follow. Arcimoto aims to produce 200 FUVs per week, about 10,000+ annually.

In order to meet its target, Arcimoto had to triple the size of its team. What was even more impressive was to see how efficiently it allocated its resources. I’ve witnessed the transition from a small R&D prototyping shop into a very lean vehicle production manufacturing site.

Arcimoto also had to invent, add, and even rethink how it handles its material handling, quality, manufacture engineering, and just about everything. And what I saw before its first public shareholder meeting was an enthusiastic team uniformly working together. It’s a testament to the sheer good will found in startups.

Arcimoto Reinvents The Experience Center

The best way to get people to buy an electric vehicle (EV) is to get them in an EV. Arcimoto had to create its own experience center, called the “Rentail” outlet in its hometown in Eugene, Oregon. Located in the historic Whiteaker neighborhood at 543 Blair Boulevard, the showroom is both a service and a rental center for its FUVs. It’s the best way for people to see how EVs answer tomorrow’s mobility needs.

Arcimoto, A Case Study For Startup Efficiency

So far, 3,000 early adopters placed a pre-order deposit for the production queue. But does it mean Arcimoto is home safe? Human error is not easy to anticipate, but Arcimoto’s diligent work shows it has eventually paid off.

I find stories like these something to cheer about when the news is littered with negative news fouling our trust. Many of us have been waiting a long time, a really long time, for a substantial change. The EV revolution is proving to also be a new way of conducting business, back to common sense and a re-balancing of business interest meeting real public demand.

And in case there are doubts as to my motivation, the only payment received is by you reading these lines, nothing more.