46: Big micromobility - hitting the 500kg limit with Arcimoto CEO Mark Frohnmayer

In today’s episode, Oliver interviews Mark Frohnmayer, CEO of Arcimoto, a new 1100lb+ electric trike that has just gone into production in Eugene, Oregon. Arcimoto is aiming to a hit a US$12k production price point for a vehicle with 70+ miles of range and able to conform to all roading infrastructure, including highways. We unpack why this is a disruptive solution to the market. Specifically we dig into: - The origin story for Arcimoto and why Mark launched the company - The specifics of the vehicle, including their design tradeoffs and benefits and what ‘rockstar parking’ means - Their planned routes to market, including rentals and enterprise customers - The challenges of getting to production, and where they’ve learnt lessons - How and why they’re interested in adding autonomy to their design platform - Why their manufacturing strategy is disruptive compared to existing vehicle manufacturing techniques today - Their plans for expansion globally - What the capital markets have been like for them as they went from concept to production Thanks to this week’s sponsor Particle. Particle provides an end-to-end IoT platform, from device management to connectivity to hardware for connecting micromobility vehicles to networks and reducing complexity as operations scale. For operators that I’ve talked to, they’re a godsend in the world of highly complex and competitive operations.  Visit Particle.io/micromobility to learn more and request a free IoT development kit. All podcast listeners will also receive a free consultation. Visit Particle.io/micromobility today.