Lets Krash the party!

Spill, Phil! We cannot wait!

 

Did she buy you a new dragster with slicks that won’t go on wet surfaces? Happy belated Birthday. 70 is a good number.

 

OK, here it is........

There's a fairly new company in my area, based in Eugene, Oregon, only a few minutes away from where I live, called Arcimoto. They make small all-electric urban commuter vehicles, and are getting a lot of interest. Well, for my 70th birthday, my dear wife rented one for me, for 3 hours. After some rainy weather delays, we finally got to do it yesterday.

So, what's the Arcimoto all about? Here's the scoop...

In my introduction to the vehicle, I found out it can best be described as a semi-enclosed, electric-powered, 3-wheel motor scooter. It drives through the FRONT wheels, with the single rear wheel having a disc brake and just tagging along for the ride. The base model doesn't have doors on it, but our rental had a set of prototype simple doors, on both sides! They are apparently working on some side curtains for inclement weather. It has a huge windshield in front that effectively stopped 95% of the wind buffeting. The roof covering was (I think) another piece of the same windshield material (Lexan?). The structure is basically a tube space frame, with a 'tunnel' down the middle between your feet, where I'm guessing the batteries live, which gives the Arcimoto a pretty low center of gravity.

The driver controls are mostly mounted on a motorcycle-type handlebar unit -'throttle' on the right, with a finger switch for the regenerative braking. There is a foot-operated brake pedal, but it's mostly used for your last bit of braking coming to a stop, and/or holding you in place on a hill. It's got non-self-cancelling turn signals (easy to cancel them yourself). It's got forward, reverse, and a parking brake you activate by pressing a button on the dash. The version I was driving also came with heated seats, which the missus in back REALLY appreciated. There are also of course, lights and a big windshield wiper (with washer), which thankfully we did not have to use. The seat itself is textured plastic, and I would need some more cushioning if I owned one. This might be on their options list - I dunno. It's got a couple of speakers and blue tooth connectivity to hook up with your phone for music, but it does not have its own radio - might also be an option...??? OK - so how does it drive?

Th Arcimoto I rented started out with a full charge. It took me about 2-3 miles of driving before I was completely comfortable with everything. The turning is very direct - no 'power' steering, but the feel is good. The turning circle seemed a bit large at first, but with more experience, I don't think this would be a problem, because of how small it is , overall. It accelerated quite well. I seemed to attract a lot of drivers who were creeping up on me, as I was getting the feel of the Arcimoto, and wasn't going above the 35mph speed limit, but a little more twist of the throttle and I left those tailgaters behind. Actually got it up to 56mph on one stretch of country road. It should be noted that the higher speeds really have a negative affect on your total overall range. I was told you can squeeze out up to a 100 mile range, and I can see that being possible, but only if you kept your speeds really low. As a practical matter, I returned the Arcimoto with 42% of it battery capacity left, and we had traveled a total of about 37 miles. So, extrapolating those figures out, that's about a real-world range of around 64 miles, if you didn't baby it.

Some of their literature in the Arcimoto office indicated you can get one of these little buggers up to 75mph, but maybe it's a version with more powerful electric motors. Saw a couple of other versions of the body - one where the back seat was just a cargo area, had Domino's Pizza delivery plastered on the sides. There's also a special 'fire-fighting' prototype they made up for the Eugene-Springfield Fire Department, but I haven't seen any information on how they are incorporating into their work environment. Personally, I might want one as sort of a literal 'grocery getter' and 'trip to the big-box store getter', with maybe a place to attach a small amount of lumber, etc. Lately, I've been driving to by local big box store almost every day. It would certainly be a lot cheaper (and more fun) taking the Arcimoto.

Now, the hard part you're all wondering - what does it cost? I, as well as one curious on-looker who inquired about it, guessed that it might be in the $12-15,000 range. In fact, the base price starts around $17,000. That's a bit more than I would be comfortable with, but if they get more production going, perhaps the price could drop some. There were about 100 of them inside the warehouse building I got the rental from.

 

At the last Barrett Jackson there is a company called Electrica-Meccanica that is opening a plant in the Phoenix area. They are going to manufacture the “Solo” very similar.

 

The Arcimoto is pretty basic, but really, for a small vehicle for around-town use, what do you REALLY need?

I suspect that over time, there will be an upmarket 2nd-gen Arcimoto with full doors including roll-up windows, etc.

 

That's neat Marshall. It sounds like you had a good time.