[Sent as an email to our newsletter list on January 5, 2019. Sign up to receive these emails here. Already on the list but aren’t receiving our emails? Contact us at info@arcimoto.com to sort the problem.]
As we head into the new year, we thought we’d take this moment to look back at the year that was, and to share with you the Arcimoto roadmap for the future, including an update on our first retail FUVs.
The short version: In 2018 we built our factory, our team, and two dozen beta FUVs. Our first retail FUVs are scheduled for delivery in Q2 2019. Our updated retail design will be revealed in the coming weeks. Thank you to all for the support. We fully expect that 2019 will no doubt be Arcimoto’s best year yet!
The long version: No year saw more dramatic change at Arcimoto than 2018. The team tripled in size as we expanded from a small R&D prototyping shop into a vehicle production enterprise. We added new divisions to the company, including material handling, quality, manufacture engineering, compliance, HR, and service. At the same time, we bolstered our marketing, finance, engineering, and design teams.
We built out our first manufacturing plant and assembled three series of vehicles, each in successive stages of refinement. Before heading out for the holidays, we completed mechanical and electrical designs for our Series A-1 production-intent vehicle.
Meanwhile, we shared the Arcimoto story with an ever wider audience of potential customers, including the more than 3,000 early adopters who’ve placed a pre-order deposit to hold a place in the production queue. At the same time, we honed our go-to-market business strategy, and launched our first “Rentail” outlet here in our hometown of Eugene, Oregon.
And just last week, we closed on our second shelf financing, obtaining the capital resources we believe will carry us into retail FUV production and the delivery of vehicles to our first pre-order customers.
Which brings us to 2019. Over the next two months, we plan to build nine more test vehicles, all using our fully-integrated, semi-automated metal manufacturing capabilities. These Series A-2 “Release Candidate” prototypes will go through final testing for quality, reliability, longevity and compliance, paving the way for the Series A-3 Retail FUVs at the end of this quarter.
Later this month, we’ll begin reaching out to our first pre-order customers in the states of Oregon, California, and Washington to place their vehicle orders and take non-refundable deposits for the first 200 FUVs off the line, with deliveries slated right in time for summer.
Additional regions are expected to follow as we build out our service and delivery networks nationwide. Our goal is to deliver all of our US-based pre-orders by the end of Q1 2020, with international deliveries to follow. By this time next year, our goal is to produce FUVs at a rate of 200 per week out of the AMP, which equates to 10,000+ annually.
This year will also see the opening of our first destination rental outlets. This Spring, in partnership with our friends at Hula Multimodal, we plan to open the doors to the FUV Hub San Diego, located in the East Village, and the EV Oasis in Encinitas, California, with more locations expected to follow.
Finally, here at the beginning of the new year and the end of a long letter, we want to offer a sincere thank you to all of you who have supported us along the way. Thank you to our teammates who wear the Arcimoto black, and the loved ones who cheer them on. Thank you to our investors who put skin in the game to make this vision a reality. And a big thank you to our pre-order customers. You are our biggest evangelists, and the FUV wouldn’t exist without you.
2019 is poised to be the year of the FUV. We hope you enjoy the ride.
Sincerely,
Team Arcimoto
Forward-Looking Statements:
Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this newsletter are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements that express our intentions, beliefs, expectations, strategies, predictions or any other statements relating to our future activities or other future events or conditions and include, without limitation, our expectations as to A-2 and A-3 production, the establishment of our service and delivery network, our expected rate of production and our expected establishment of rental outlets. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about our business based, in part, on assumptions made by management. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may, and are likely to, differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements due to numerous factors discussed from time to time in documents which we file with the SEC. In addition, such statements could be affected by risks and uncertainties related to, among other things: our ability to effectively execute on our business plan and growth strategy; our ability to design, manufacture and market vehicle models within projected timeframes given that a vehicle consists of several thousand unique items and we can only go as fast as the slowest item; our inexperience to date in manufacturing vehicles at the high volumes that we anticipate; our dependence on suppliers; the number of reservations and cancellations for our vehicles and the ability to deliver on those reservations; our reliance on key personnel; our ability to manage the distribution channels for our products, including our ability to successfully implement our direct to consumer distribution strategy and any additional distribution strategies we may deem appropriate; changes in consumer demand for, and acceptance of, our products; changes in the competitive environment, including adoption of technologies and products that compete with our products; the overall strength and stability of general economic conditions and of the automotive industry more specifically; and changes in laws or regulations governing our business and operations. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and except as may be required under applicable securities laws, we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
