[00:00:02] In today's episode we speak with Mark Fröhnmeier. He's the founder of Arkimoto, a three-wheel electric vehicle manufacturer based in Eugene, Oregon.
[00:00:11] We discuss what led him to originally form the company, its growth in the EV space over the past 10 years, the outcomes of becoming a public company and where they're going next.
[00:00:23] Thanks. Today I'm joined by Mark Fröhnmeier, the founder and CEO of Arkimoto. It's been great to see this company grow in Oregon being an Oregonian myself.
[00:00:32] So thanks for joining us today, Mark.
[00:00:35] Chase, thank you for having me on the program.
[00:00:38] Well, great. I would love to share your story. I think it's such a unique one and really cool how it's been kind of it's gone through so many evolutions and just the traction you're seeing with the company recently going public.
[00:00:49] Just the interest I'm seeing. So I've known about the company for a while but now just seeing it go, not even just national but global headlines is amazing.
[00:00:59] So let's just make it easy for anyone that maybe if they've been living in a cave or something and they don't know who you are or what Arkimoto is and just kind of kick it out from there.
[00:01:08] Sure. Yes. So Arkimoto were an ultra efficient transportation solutions provider.
[00:01:14] We build the fun utility vehicle and it's actually a whole product family around a new ultra efficient three wheeled electric vehicle architecture.
[00:01:26] Dual motor front wheel drive carries two passengers very comfortably in the space, not much bigger than a big, big motorcycle.
[00:01:36] And the, I guess they sort of the backstory of how I came to be doing this. You know that I never thought that I would actually be an entrepreneur that was not ever a goal and certainly not an electric vehicle company entrepreneur, which is its own truly interesting adventure.
[00:01:54] But I went looking for a vehicle in 2007. I was looking for an electric ride for doing around town stuff. And really kind of the inspiration for Arkimoto came from noticing the giant gap between the bike and the car.
[00:02:13] I was at that time, a committed cyclist didn't own a car. I should still own a car. I do have I do own an Arkimoto at this point now though so I did finally get my ride which is which is good.
[00:02:26] But there's there's just this giant disconnect between how we typically use cars every day, which is by ourselves or with just one other person with a small amount of stuff doing around town things.
[00:02:39] And what cars are really designed to do, which is carry five to seven people hundreds of miles at a time with a lot of gear.
[00:02:47] And that disconnect creates just massive inefficiency in the overall transportation system when everyone is carrying around 5x what they need in terms of empty space.
[00:03:00] You got to have all the roads be very big you have to have lots of lanes and the vehicles that we use end up just sort of dominating the urban landscape.
[00:03:12] I think something like 75% of the public space in New York is just there to move and park cars, about 50% of the average city somewhere around that is paved over for moving and parking cars.
[00:03:26] And so the, the idea of Arkimoto was really and what I went looking for was something that was human scale, right sized for the kinds of trips that I do all the time that that really most of us do all the time.
[00:03:40] And when I couldn't find it in the market. That was when, when I decided through a series of poor life choices to start my own company to go after it.
[00:03:53] So, I think that's the great summary but let's take a step back because I think what you highlighted there about how you define yourself as not being the traditional entrepreneur is pretty interesting because just having met you before and hearing a bit of your story.
[00:04:08] Can we take a step backward with how you got into entrepreneurship in general because it isn't what you might find at all in the traditional automotive space it started with gave development and kind of taking some interesting zigs and zags from there.
[00:04:25] Definitely. Well, so how I got started entrepreneurship and I can remember the conversation was when Jeff Janell, who was co founder with me at garage games said he was also the founder of dynamics which is the first game company that I worked at I actually started working
[00:04:44] in high school and then after I graduated from college came back and started working full time. But about maybe four years and he Jeff pulled me aside and said, you need to quit and go start writing a new game engine, and we are going to give that game engine away to independent game developers to help them make games.
[00:05:08] And as soon as you said I was like, that sounds that sounds like just the thing I should do.
[00:05:16] And what I really what I think I realized was that that entrepreneurship can be a very powerful way of making change in the world.
[00:05:25] There are certain changes that you can make through public policy. There are certain changes that that nonprofits and foundations can go after, but there are also problems in the world that come from building new things and new ideas that shift how we behave collectively as a culture.
[00:05:46] And that that was really when it when we got started on garage games, it was, it was to make a change in game development. It was to make a it was to enable creative people to build their dreams and and that was that was motivating enough for me to say okay I'm going to not be a, you know, stable day job kind of a guy and I'm going to go out there and start start pushing the edge.
[00:06:13] And I think that's perfectly exemplifies so many of the stories we've been hearing in the electric vehicle space for people who are kind of coming from a completely different realm and now kind of stepping into making a huge impact so from there you had your success there and then kind of can you walk through where that evolved in our commoto.
[00:06:37] Yeah we sold garage games in 2007.
[00:06:41] I see came along and made an offer that the partnership couldn't refuse.
[00:06:47] And so, and we did that because we sort of put together a bunch of different pieces of of an overall gaming.
[00:06:56] Pie that they wanted to create called instant action. And that left me with a peculiar problem which is that I knew, I knew what to do with equity in a game company and where to go in the game world and in terms of building next generation engine technology and and games and so on.
[00:07:14] But I really had no clear picture of what to do with the pile of cash.
[00:07:19] And so that was when I'm, but I did have a very clear sense of the pressing challenge that is climate change. I mean the writing was definitely on the wall in 2007 and I would argue that what we've been experiencing in in terms of climate these last couple of years is just
[00:07:40] there is in controversial overwhelming evidence that we need to dramatically shift our patterns or life as we know it is going to be severely diminished.
[00:07:52] And so I just, yeah, I said at that point I just really committed I've been talking a big game about what we needed to do to fix the problems of the world.
[00:08:02] And all of a sudden I had resources so that I just decided at that point I was going to pretty much put all of those resources to work.
[00:08:10] Trying to solve the problems. And I also had a at that point of pressing problem of my own which is that I had moved into a house and occasionally I needed some motorized transport to, you know, make the make the home
[00:08:25] improvement store run or go visit the folks on a cold rainy night when I didn't want to pedal my bicycle. And it was, it was it was that combo of looking for a product that I couldn't find for me, wanting to do
[00:08:40] something meaningful for you know the the planet as a whole, and then seeing a three wheeled kit vehicle in a parade and just kind of like light bulb that was a light bulb which is that they're seeing the gap really almost for the first time, which is
[00:08:57] which sounds crazy but you know, you grow up and it's like their bikes and their cars.
[00:09:03] And when I saw something that was like really cool looking in that gap between the bike in the car. It just it blew me away because I was like well how is it that there is there's not just a whole wealth of products range of different things in this space between
[00:09:21] the bike and the car. And I over the next seven years I would find out why there weren't very many if any real solutions in that space which is, is developing a three wheeled vehicle is actually really tough to get it right.
[00:09:37] And so, but that was that that was how how I switched from being a video game coder to electric vehicle entrepreneur was just.
[00:09:48] I had the, I would say irrational exuberance of a first exit from a software company, which left me with the mistaken belief that entrepreneurship was easy in all circumstances, which then allowed me to take on a substantially more difficult problem.
[00:10:09] I mean hardware versus software what's the difference right.
[00:10:12] Yeah, right totally.
[00:10:14] So let's let's kind of go further with that you said there was this kind of you saw a vehicle that was already out there. And instead of just saying okay there's some sort of solution.
[00:10:25] You kind of went further and start exploring what that spectrum kind of in between is and where those kind of challenges could be addressed and how to do that through electrification.
[00:10:35] Could you could you share what it was that kind of pushed you to take the entrepreneur entrepreneurial leap to go down that path and then find out what some of those challenges were, and where our commodus really thriving in addressing those issues.
[00:10:52] I would say it was kind of a slippery slope.
[00:10:54] I got one of the kits to start I just ordered one of and this is a guy Mark Murphy lives down in Creswell about 10 miles away.
[00:11:02] He's been doing you know just pushing the futurism edge of super lightweight electric vehicles for decades.
[00:11:11] And, and got some friends to help put it together because I thought at that point like that was that was it that was what that was what I wanted but once we got it together.
[00:11:20] Really none needs a little more storage and I can't quite see out of it. It needs some comfort improvements need to be more stable high speed.
[00:11:28] So we put it together and then said, Alright, what can we do make a few tweaks here and there. And it was that process of a few tweaks that led us to, you know, say, Okay, we need to start off with a clean sheet.
[00:11:43] Here's our real first idea for a product. Then we put that in front of a bunch of people and said, Is this something because at that point I was thinking, Okay, this isn't just for me at this point anymore like we're actually, you know, we're trying to figure out something that's going to work for a lot of people.
[00:12:02] And that that was what began that iterative process and what I sort of figure out later.
[00:12:08] If a really smart guy by the name of Thomas Thurston explained disruption theory to me and this is Clayton Christiansen's work innovators dilemma that that they're a disruptor and that word gets used all the time for many different things but in the sort of canonical sense, a disruptor is a product that or
[00:12:17] service that meets a utility a real utility threshold for a market but does so at a much lower price point.
[00:12:26] And so what we really did for the first maybe four or five years of Arkimoto was figure out a way to do that.
[00:12:32] And so what we really did for the first maybe four or five years of Arkimoto was figure out through kind of a binary search through the three wheel vehicle space, what the real utility threshold utility need for the daily transportation market is.
[00:12:48] And we, you know, we found out it needs two comfortable seats it needs carrying capacity for some groceries it needs to be able to go on all the roads and this is just through I largely through thousands and thousands of anecdotal interactions with potential customers.
[00:13:06] And once the trouble is once we got to that meeting the utility threshold state, we had a, you know, 2300 pound three wheeled behemoth on the road that didn't get to that real disruption in terms of the real utility threshold.
[00:13:21] And so once we got to that meeting the utility threshold state, we had a you know, 2300 pound three wheeled behemoth on the road that didn't get to that real disruption in terms of cost of materials and energy efficiency and all the rest.
[00:13:41] And so next, I would say, few years over again multiple generations of prototypes was figuring out how could we deliver that set of capabilities on something that was, you know, a quarter or third of the weight of a car could fit park three in a parking space, really hit the sweet spot
[00:14:01] in terms of the right size footprint for daily travel.
[00:14:06] And it really wasn't until that point, seven years in that I felt like we really had the win. You know we'd been when I started it was like they are there's golden those hills and you just start marching along.
[00:14:20] I didn't find didn't strike the vein until until December 20 2014, when I finally sketched up generation number eight and it was like this thing's going to win.
[00:14:33] But of course then it's there's there's a whole host of other challenges once you've got the right idea or a right idea to actually making that real and in a hardware venture. I mean it was it's considerable challenge.
[00:14:46] You have a exponential leap from software to hardware and then there's an exponential leap from hardware to automotive.
[00:14:53] There's a few regulations it turns out that you have to follow and fall right into and make sure when this if that and many more.
[00:15:02] I guess before we kind of go into that. Can you take, can you go through like a few of the iterations that really helped bring down the weight and what those kind of breakthroughs were because if I remember right because I think I saw one of the earlier
[00:15:15] prototypes back for the first time I think like 2012. And if I remember back then it was, it wasn't lithium ion in the battery packs right it was started with lead.
[00:15:27] Because and that's I'm a can be a stubborn guy, occasionally and what what has kind of bothered me was from from the beginning is that the in the in the kind of Silicon Valley world.
[00:15:41] And really in general automotive that the problem of the electric vehicle has been posed as one of the battery and energy density.
[00:15:52] In the world of our commoto we have the firm belief that the problem is about footprint.
[00:15:59] That, that the only reason why you need a super next gen battery is because you're trying to propel 4000 pounds of material 300 miles at a go when again most of us are just traveling by ourselves or with one other person on average 30 miles a day
[00:16:20] median trip length I think is like five miles. So the only reason why we are, we are reliant on continued innovation in the battery is because we're trying to solve a super inefficient problem.
[00:16:36] And so, in the early days of our commoto I was like we're just going to use lead acid batteries and we'll build something that's lightweight enough that that that can still be a very good everyday electric vehicle.
[00:16:49] And we didn't the architectures that we built in those first several years were not. We're not simple enough we're not light enough we're not small enough that lead was a viable product solution.
[00:17:04] And so we jumped in I don't think 2012 we built our first lithium ion lithium iron phosphate packed vehicle and then now of course we're using cutting edge lithium ion chemistry for our batteries.
[00:17:19] And the reality was back then it just wasn't cost effective either for the delta of yeah.
[00:17:25] But the funny thing about it is that when we finally got to the right architecture generation eight generation eight is a vehicle architecture that actually could likely host a lead acid battery and still get a meaningful range and great performance for a certain section of the marketplace.
[00:17:43] And so, we did I think actually finally validate that original thesis but of course the technology world has moved on to to some really impressive work in energy storage and the advantage for us is that you know we can we can use cutting edge technology we just use a lot less of it.
[00:18:06] Right. And with that eighth generation I don't remember is it currently a steel frame, or at least that's what it because I know that's what it kind of started with and then went through a few iterations is it is the.
[00:18:18] We've always built the frames out of steel.
[00:18:21] Yeah, we had at one point.
[00:18:26] You know move to aluminum for the battery bay. But again like so when you're light weighting a vehicle.
[00:18:33] You can either lightweight the materials. So if you want to make a lighter sports car you move it to carbon fiber and aluminum and do lots of lots of tricks with with the materials to make it lighter, or you can lightweight the idea and keep the materials.
[00:18:52] And so we've definitely adopted the Toyota mantra of continuous improvement. And so we aim to continually improve the energy footprint the cost footprint the materials and the you know really the impact on the
[00:19:03] impact of every product we build on the world. But we're starting from a point that is that is sort of aiming in the right direction from the beginning.
[00:19:14] So with that eighth generation, we've definitely adopted the Toyota mantra of continuous improvement. And so we aim to continually improve the energy footprint the cost footprint the materials and the you know really the impact of every product we build on the world.
[00:19:28] And that is that is sort of aiming in the right direction from the beginning.
[00:19:33] So with that eighth generation vehicle was that that kind of constant improvement or was there a decent kind of engineering breakthrough that made it so it became a much more feasible vehicle in your mind.
[00:19:46] it was something that was sort of this blinding flash of the obvious after seven years,
[00:19:54] which was why are we building a vehicle with a steering wheel?
[00:19:58] This thing needs handlebars. And it I'd sort of first had that notion in, I think somewhere
[00:20:04] around 2012 when like what would this thing look like if it were more city scooter style?
[00:20:12] But by that time we were sort of like way into the development of the seventh generation
[00:20:16] and shifting gears then didn't appear like it was going to be a win.
[00:20:24] But once we got Gen 7 on the road, I said this thing is still too big, too heavy,
[00:20:29] it's going to cost too much, it's not going to be competitive in the market.
[00:20:33] And what can we do? And that was one of those, you know,
[00:20:36] Archimolo was really, you know, seven years of seven nice tries. Like didn't, you know,
[00:20:44] your princess is in another castle. And so it was at that point the choice was either,
[00:20:53] you know, we were still not getting funding on the scale that we would need to really take it
[00:20:58] to a true market test. We were, we'd just been sort of grinding it out with friends and family
[00:21:05] support and that had grown quite stale. And so it was, I just sort of said, okay,
[00:21:14] I'm going to draw this up with handlebars and the occupants sitting like you would on a city
[00:21:22] scooter. Got my housemate to measure me. I sat in a folding chair because I figured if anyone's
[00:21:29] figured out acceptable ergonomics for the five to 95 percentile, it's the people who make folding
[00:21:37] chairs. So I just sat in a folding chair, had my housemate measure me on top of the head to the
[00:21:42] floor back to the tips of the toes. And then I'm more sizing dummy, I'm six foot four. So I figure
[00:21:48] if I can fit in there, almost everybody can. And I just took that rectangle copy pasted it,
[00:21:53] put the drivetrain on the front, the swing arm on the rear and measured it. And it was like
[00:22:00] two feet shorter. The architecture would allow us to actually use the chassis as the battery box
[00:22:07] in the main seating configuration. And I just looked at it. I was like, this thing is going to be
[00:22:12] hundreds of pounds lighter. It's going to be short enough that you can park it three in a space.
[00:22:17] It's going to just sort of in that one move. We went from building a 1,760 pound prototype
[00:22:25] to the first generation eight prototype was 1,023 pounds. So we chopped off
[00:22:30] that's massive percent of the vehicle's weight. But it was at that point when I just looked
[00:22:37] at that architecture, I was like, this thing is going to win. This has got real win potential
[00:22:42] on it. This is what I was looking for. And now we've got to go make it real. So
[00:22:49] at that point, I had to lay off pretty much the entire team kept one engineer going,
[00:22:56] doing kind of the basic validation of this new platform idea. I hired a guy across the country
[00:23:03] who I'd never met, a guy named Greg Thompson to do the industrial design. He'd won the sports
[00:23:09] car design challenge on local motors. And I said, hey, can I pay you on terms? And you want to take
[00:23:19] a crack at this design puzzle? And he said, this looks awesome. This is going to be a really
[00:23:24] interesting challenge because it doesn't look like any vehicle that you've seen out there on the road.
[00:23:30] So how do you make something that's new, that's tall and short? And how do you make that look
[00:23:36] cool and fun and really live up to what the experience was going to be? But he made a
[00:23:43] super kick ass industrial design renders. And I just, I took all that, our basic technical study,
[00:23:51] the renders of what it would look like, made one more run at the venture world of San Francisco.
[00:23:58] And Bill Hambrecht did our series A. So that's what got us going. And
[00:24:06] really got the company moving, built, looks like works like prototypes, did a marketing launch,
[00:24:13] accumulated a bunch of pre-orders and then went public in order to build the factory and
[00:24:17] get through compliance and put vehicles on the road. And then what year was the series A again?
[00:24:23] This was early 2015. So I mean, that's a huge just step forward going from that,
[00:24:31] getting all these things ready, getting that financing and then obviously going from that to
[00:24:35] then finally going public. What do you think you mentioned just some of the challenges you had
[00:24:41] with fundraising? Obviously between even 2012 and 2015, I think just the public psyche,
[00:24:48] let alone the psyche towards electric vehicles, especially in the kind of
[00:24:53] investment community had changed, but was still kind of hesitant. And nowadays it seems
[00:24:59] like anything electric vehicle is kind of the hot stock commodity item and they want to be a part
[00:25:04] of it. But can you share what some of the, I mean, I'm sure it's probably the things you would think
[00:25:10] of, but can you share some of the pushback you were getting about why they didn't want to invest
[00:25:15] in Arkimoto? And then what was it that really kind of finally changed their mindset to push
[00:25:20] them over the edge to make that investment? Well, I think when I first, so I kicked in
[00:25:27] the first couple million dollars out of the proceeds of the sale of garage games into starting the
[00:25:33] company. And I had, we bootstraps garage games. So we had basically zero relationships in
[00:25:45] the Silicon Valley venture world in the angel investment world. It was just sort of like
[00:25:50] we each kicked in 10 grand and then sold it for a deal that totaled 50 million. And so
[00:25:57] when I went out to go fundraise on in Silicon Valley, nobody knew who I was. Nobody had any
[00:26:05] real sense for what was or was not possible with me at the helm. And then it was at that
[00:26:16] point 2009. 2007 was a great year to sell a company. 2009 was a atrociously bad year to go looking for
[00:26:25] venture financing and particularly in electric vehicles. I mean, one, the housing crisis
[00:26:33] and recession had really taken a lot of the wind out of the venture sales. And then every electric
[00:26:38] vehicle bet that they had made looked like it was going through zero. I mean, this was
[00:26:42] Biscara 1.0, Kota, Abterra, Tesla was totally on the ropes. And I show up with this crazy three-wheel
[00:26:53] vehicle idea from Eugene, Oregon, having zero experience in the automotive world and just
[00:26:58] got laughed out of every office. So that was what ultimately turned me to friends and family and
[00:27:05] then had to make new friends and family stop for turning phone calls. But managed to,
[00:27:12] the fundraising stories on our Komodo in the early days are crazy. I mean, we had a
[00:27:19] spinal surgeon who was in town on vacation with his family and they were looking for a bathroom
[00:27:26] next to the restaurant. We had a design studio next to the restaurant. They kind of walked in and
[00:27:31] said, what are you doing here? And what restaurant was that? This was talking to Whitaker,
[00:27:40] right? Yeah, yeah. So TacoVor. Yeah, that's what it was. Okay. Fantastic tacos. And he looked at
[00:27:49] he had seen what Tesla had done. He's like, this is, yes, are in the right direction. I was not
[00:27:54] actually there at the time. I was on a trip and so I didn't meet him for, I think, another year
[00:28:02] and a half or something like that. But in the interim, he invested substantially in the company
[00:28:08] and let us get to the next stage. And so it's sort of like every time we were really up against
[00:28:14] the ropes, somehow, some way, the right solution would come up to let us move forward to the next step.
[00:28:23] Well, that sounds great because it just seems like the people who were invested in it too were
[00:28:27] people who fully believed in it and saw what the greater vision of it would be. And that's
[00:28:34] kind of great to hear that. That is a common thread where it's just like, when it looks like things
[00:28:40] are going to end, it's always kind of this, whether it's luck or whatever you want to credit to, people
[00:28:44] just kind of come out of the woodwork who have the same shared insights and want to see the
[00:28:49] succeed to really keep it going. Yeah. And I think that also just the sense that we were
[00:28:57] not going to quit, although you could argue, or I would argue that
[00:29:04] the first seven years and seven generations were just sort of seven failures in a row.
[00:29:10] Every time we would get done with that sort of iteration, and it was both,
[00:29:15] each one was sort of closer to the success point. And we learned a ton along the way at each
[00:29:22] step. But we would also look out at the world and go, has anybody else really solved this problem?
[00:29:29] And are we perhaps still in the best spot despite the surface appearance and the odds,
[00:29:38] are we maybe still in the best spot to really nail it? And that's really sort of what I think
[00:29:44] kept me going forward continuously was we need a solution to this problem. And
[00:29:52] we, I think ultimately we were on the right track. So that was, it's definitely been a reasonable way
[00:30:00] to pass the time. And so that's, I think that kind of transitions well to
[00:30:08] what Archimodo fits into and some of these kind of industries that your companies focused
[00:30:16] on helping address and the services you can provide. Because I remember like back in the day,
[00:30:21] it was kind of like quasi motorcycle, quasi car, it was kind of hard for trying to figure out where
[00:30:28] it actually fell into, but you also want to make it approachable and usable, which it
[00:30:32] definitely is as a vehicle. Can you kind of share who some of the industries that you've
[00:30:39] kind of first connected with are that are looking at purchasing Archimodo for different
[00:30:43] services? And if there are maybe any that maybe surprised you or you weren't expecting,
[00:30:49] you know, it's really so something to really think about is just that for almost for all the fleets
[00:30:58] out there, there are a certain percentage of the trips that are one person traveling a relatively
[00:31:06] short distance with a relatively small amount of stuff or two people traveling a relatively
[00:31:10] short distance with a relatively small amount of stuff. And that when you're running a fleet
[00:31:17] and you want to make sure that you are solving your transportation problems in the most
[00:31:26] cost efficient way that you can, then and you just slice it and you say, okay, well this
[00:31:32] percentage of the trips out of our motor pool are fit this pattern. That percentage of our vehicles
[00:31:42] should be the lowest cost solution that can solve for that pattern. And it's been fascinating to me
[00:31:51] to see all of the different use cases that have come up and we've articulated a few of them in
[00:31:57] our current product line, right? The fun utility vehicle is kind of the everyday electric vehicle
[00:32:02] for getting groceries or for going out with a friend or for vacation rental or sightseeing or
[00:32:08] whatever. The Deliverator does very well at last mile delivery. It can deliver flowers,
[00:32:15] it can deliver food and pizza, giant load of groceries, parcels, whatever. But the basic
[00:32:23] platform can be modified for all kinds of different uses. We've had discussions with
[00:32:30] maintenance repair crews that want to run basically just run an air compressor and air
[00:32:36] powered tools for doing maintenance on campuses where they can zip really quickly between different
[00:32:42] maintenance needs and then they've got really a lot of space and a lot of power in the vehicle
[00:32:47] to run a compressor and run tools. We have people who want to deliver hot food and have
[00:32:54] a hot food option for the delivery vehicle. We have people who, we ourselves use the platform
[00:33:01] for camera work so we created a vehicle called the Cameo that lets a videographer
[00:33:07] sit in the backseat facing backward with just completely unrestricted view of the road.
[00:33:12] If you've ever seen people try and record cars from like another car where they've got the minivan
[00:33:19] back door open and somebody's kind of hanging out the back, there's really not a lot in the
[00:33:23] market between that and the multi-hundred thousand dollar camera truck. In each of these cases,
[00:33:32] it's all about just looking at what is the task set that needs to be done and can this platform
[00:33:41] solve that task set in the most cost efficient way. What I think we're finding is that for a
[00:33:49] very wide range of the tasks on the road today, the Arkimoto platform is a really good solution.
[00:33:57] As we get, I think one of the things that you alluded to but just that the vehicles are now
[00:34:04] out there that you can try them, that you can see them coming down the road. It's just a very
[00:34:12] different point in the company's development process when somebody can get behind the handlebars,
[00:34:20] experience the real joy of the ride and kind of say okay I see this how this can really apply to
[00:34:28] all of these different things that I do. So that's actually, that brings up a great point.
[00:34:34] Being this company that started Eugene, now having this exposure, let's say whether it's someone who
[00:34:40] wants to use it for their personal use or like a fleet operator, how can they kind of get in the
[00:34:46] seat of one? Or how do you see that as kind of the way to kind of allow people to test it out
[00:34:52] before they can actually go out and purchase one? I mean I remember even driving it back in
[00:34:57] 2012 and I was like this makes sense, it's a lot of fun. And it, I had kind of driven a similar,
[00:35:03] a couple similar things before so I knew what I was expecting but I think for a lot of people
[00:35:08] they might have all sorts of different misperceptions and so I'm just curious how Arkimoto
[00:35:13] is maybe going especially right now with kind of finally coming out of the COVID era of how
[00:35:21] kind of getting more or less butts in seats to really see how well the system works. Totally, so
[00:35:27] and COVID has certainly complicated that whole question. So as we were our real initial, I would
[00:35:38] say that the kind of baseline experience the vehicle in market model for Arkimoto is rental
[00:35:47] and that's that's distinguished from you know sort of distinguishes us from the traditional mode of
[00:35:55] franchise retail and then more of the kind of company store approach that say Apple and Tesla
[00:36:02] and so on have done. We think that that rental is going to be the most cost efficient way and
[00:36:09] ultimately should be a profit center for Arkimoto for that initial user experience.
[00:36:15] We, our first rental franchise opened in Key West pretty much right before vacation travel went to zero
[00:36:23] at the beginning of the pandemic so but as that is comes back and as we come out of this
[00:36:30] window that is going to be a real priority for us is to get rental locations open in areas where
[00:36:37] we want to have a significant market presence. So you can think Southern California, Florida,
[00:36:45] islands really anything that is a good destination spot where you've got vehicles for rent and they
[00:36:52] could be scooters or golf carts or whatever. We think those are very good places for us
[00:36:57] to put Arkimoto rentals. We also another sort of the next piece of that rental puzzle
[00:37:04] is vehicle sharing and there when you think about real urban areas New York City is an
[00:37:12] absolutely fantastic place to ride Arkimoto's. Winter, summer, fall, whenever you it's a blast
[00:37:21] you get across town much faster than you can in a full-size vehicle but you don't want to own
[00:37:28] one in Manhattan. You have to deal with parking and charging and all that kind of stuff so in places
[00:37:36] like that you want to have an Arkimoto available but you don't necessarily want to buy it and that's
[00:37:43] where we think it would make places like that we think would make fantastic Arkimoto sharing
[00:37:51] economies. So you've got the fact that it takes up less space to park, it costs less to charge
[00:38:00] and it maneuvers through traffic better those are all real advantages for urban environments
[00:38:06] and so that's kind of the second piece of the rental puzzle and then finally we are definitely
[00:38:12] building the platform to be autonomous and I guess the original question here
[00:38:19] was more about user experience so but as that foundation of rental that's sort of the
[00:38:30] initial layer and then the other piece is your friend is going to get one he's going to be driving
[00:38:35] around big grin plaster Oliver's face and you'll be like you like it and hopefully he says yes I
[00:38:41] love it and this is a great machine and would you like to try it and so we plan for you to
[00:38:47] be able to actually share your vehicle either just by handing over the keys or by using the app
[00:38:54] to allow somebody else to drive it when you're not using it and that's another piece where
[00:39:02] that's sort of just the network the viral network effect of getting into market
[00:39:07] builds its own momentum and then of course we will be doing things like test drive events in
[00:39:13] various places at where lots of people congregate we're definitely doing specific outreach to
[00:39:21] certain fleets to say can we get you a vehicle that your team can evaluate for larger purchase
[00:39:29] and I think that that whole mix is really going to be what lets us get people an experience of
[00:39:35] the vehicle without having to spend a massive amount of cash on retail locations and and
[00:39:44] or people who are taking a piece of the margin yeah I think that that definitely makes sense
[00:39:50] because you're hitting on kind of two ones really unique but the other about just
[00:39:56] friends talking to friends I mean that's really been the most successful way for electric
[00:40:00] vehicles to take off is someone on the block gets an electric vehicle and word of mouth they
[00:40:04] kind of hear oh he's liking it you see that with electric vehicles in general that's exactly how
[00:40:10] Tesla got a lot of its early growth was people just positive word of mouth the rental part of it
[00:40:17] is really interesting and that totally makes sense I'm curious the example you listed was a
[00:40:23] franchise thing so is this maybe a hybrid model of some that arcamoto would run and then some
[00:40:29] maybe would franchise it would I guess my question is it should we think of it more like I would
[00:40:34] download the arcamoto app when I'm in New York and get one like I would an uber or would it be more
[00:40:39] like I go on to Turro or whatever to rent an arcimoto or maybe a mix of both I think we're
[00:40:45] we're what we'll see over the next couple of years is is a lot of experimentation by arcamoto
[00:40:52] and our partners in various different models in various different places and we're gonna
[00:40:58] do more of what works so you know it's the old adage you have most stuff you try stuff most stuff
[00:41:05] fails some works do more of what works you know eventually who said that and that's that's really
[00:41:12] what we're in the phase of doing right now in terms of the sort of the market entry
[00:41:17] piece of the equation and yeah you know that tesla I think has said on multiple occasions
[00:41:25] that the it's really that word of mouth network effect it's been one of their key sales drivers
[00:41:30] the whole way along it's just getting having early customers who are incredibly enthusiastic
[00:41:37] about the product and what we've seen is that our early adopters by and large have been very
[00:41:44] enthusiastic about the ride of course you know we're also going through the throws of being an
[00:41:49] early vehicle manufacturer and and attempting to do service in the middle of a pandemic so
[00:41:55] it's it's we're we're definitely aiming for continuous improvement on that front as well
[00:42:01] but my sense is that as we get through kind of this early the early piece of production
[00:42:08] that we're going to have a very robust product and that the feedback we're getting is that
[00:42:14] people really really like to ride and I think that's going to be helpful for
[00:42:19] for scaling the demand in the market definitely and I think that's kind of a great point we
[00:42:26] we've definitely kind of gone through the history of our commota and kind of now getting up to
[00:42:29] the current congrats again also for the recent IPO but can we maybe talk about where our commota
[00:42:37] is right now through the successful IPO obviously you've been working with one of our other
[00:42:44] guests sandy munro and trying to scale up production and trying to improve those kind of processes can
[00:42:49] you kind of work through what the last maybe six months have been through all of these big
[00:42:54] accomplishments and where are commos going yeah we actually went public in 2017 so we've been on
[00:43:01] the nasdaq we were we were the second electric vehicle company to go public on nasdaq the first
[00:43:06] being tesla wow my apologies I thought it was I've mistaken it I thought it was another of
[00:43:13] folks that have confused us for a spack plane but we're we went we went public actually using
[00:43:20] the the regulation a changes that went into the job and jobs and we end up listing directly
[00:43:27] after that so we've experienced the joys of being a publicly listed company now for more than three
[00:43:33] years which has come with its own set of real challenges I mean I think the ultimate benefit
[00:43:41] for us in being a public company is that we have a public mission and we want our customers to be able
[00:43:49] to be our shareholders and our shareholders to be our customers and so I think it makes a lot of
[00:43:54] sense over the long run for arc mono to be public but the there's also the way that the market
[00:44:02] works in terms of just the short-term focus is is not always perfectly aligned with a
[00:44:12] decades long vision to completely dramatically reshape how we do transportation
[00:44:18] and so that's that's been an interesting learning curve to climb and and you know we've
[00:44:25] we've definitely gotten we were sort of from our IPO to the beginning of 2020 it just made
[00:44:34] made progress but but certainly got beat around in the market here and there and then
[00:44:42] with the pandemic it was like the world suddenly woke up to electric vehicles and
[00:44:49] we we had a really a substantial rise to put it very mildly I think that we were trading at about
[00:44:58] 97 cents a share in March 17th of last year and we're now somewhere around 20 which has allowed us
[00:45:08] to absolutely you know fully right size our balance sheet really began executing full
[00:45:16] pace on all of our plans for the future and establish key relationships with groups like
[00:45:24] Monroe and associates who are helping us really plan out the next major stage of production
[00:45:30] and so this is you know we're building at a very low volume today we did we we shipped 46 vehicles
[00:45:37] to customers in 2019 we shipped 97 vehicles to customers in 2020 but what we're aiming for is
[00:45:45] to be able to build out of our out of our Eugene campus 50,000 vehicles per year
[00:45:54] within the next couple of years to be able to be to have the capacity to build at that rate
[00:46:00] and and that's that's obviously a big step up so we I think it's just it's a it's key to us that
[00:46:09] we've got the right team in place to get that right and that's why that's why we teamed up with
[00:46:15] Monroe is because that's just that is their bread and butter and what they've been doing for decades
[00:46:22] so kind of let's go a little further because I remember going to as he said yeah
[00:46:29] is Arkimoto still have the Whitaker location or has that changed since then we're going all in on the
[00:46:36] wit yeah no we don't have our original design studio that is okay it's now a barbershop and
[00:46:44] advocacy group for better voting methods but the we our factory our present factory the Arkimoto
[00:46:55] manufacturing plant is sort of on the outskirts of the Whitaker but our the new facility that we
[00:47:01] just signed a purchase agreement for is right in the heart of the wit and we've got our R&D facility
[00:47:09] is is two blocks away from there and our admin offices are going to be you know essentially
[00:47:16] right on Blair so it's it's we're staying in the hood that's great I mean just to hear how you refer
[00:47:23] to it as a campus that's definitely promising and just awesome to see like kind of growth
[00:47:28] loosely considered a campus multiple buildings in the Whitaker I think that qualifies that's
[00:47:35] great um so you mentioned COVID being just a crazy time for your company and it is wild to see just
[00:47:45] how many people we've talked to about in the autumn of industry in general COVID was just a drop-off
[00:47:50] it's rebounded better than most people thought it would but really by far globally where it stands
[00:47:56] out is just the adoption of electric vehicles have just stepped up are there any other things you
[00:48:02] could kind of share when like maybe the lockdown started what was kind of going through your head
[00:48:07] and then just the pivots and kind of surprises that have come from that well we we by by strange
[00:48:16] timing we launched the first pilot of our last mile delivery vehicle the Deliverator
[00:48:22] about a week before we shut down production due to the pandemic and what happened right after
[00:48:29] that was last mile delivery 10xed for groceries for meals for you know amazon everything it was just
[00:48:38] that became the way that you got everything and so that was and all of a sudden we had just put out
[00:48:46] what I would argue is is for a certain class of delivery the best delivery vehicle in the market
[00:48:53] we put out our rapid responder at nearly the same time right as you know the needs of
[00:48:59] of our first responders were coming into clearer focus the skies cleared in in major area in many
[00:49:07] metro areas of the world so probably for some people for the first time in their lives got to see
[00:49:14] what what their what their cities looked like without pollution and so that
[00:49:20] I think those were some of the background factors just in this kind of shift in awareness and then
[00:49:26] people stopped traveling a long ways we've learned to work from home if you if you're working from
[00:49:32] home right now and have really dialed it in over the course of the last year are you going to want
[00:49:37] to jump back in your car and commute an hour and 20 minutes each way through traffic to get to
[00:49:43] your cubicle I wouldn't want to do that so I think that the patterns that some some patterns will go
[00:49:52] sort of back to some semblance of what they were before but I think a lot of the patterns
[00:49:58] of of how we move around and how we look at the world I think there are going to be some
[00:50:02] enduring changes from that that are sort of very favorable for the thesis of arcamoto which
[00:50:09] is that figuring out how to very efficiently transport ourselves in a small amount of stuff
[00:50:15] around a local area should become a more meaningful part of the overall vehicle market
[00:50:21] than the dominant pattern of how can I transport seven people hundreds of miles
[00:50:30] and I think as we look forward yet the other piece of that is just that we are entering
[00:50:35] the area era of autonomy and and touched on that a little bit before but the
[00:50:41] as you look at ride share for example 80 percent 85 percent of uber lift taxis are just a single
[00:50:50] passenger so as we as we consider this sort of autonomous robotaxi world that we're about to enter
[00:50:57] the it is it is not going to be seven passenger self-driving SUVs I don't think that dominate the
[00:51:06] road I think it's going to be right sized very small footprint platforms designed to take one or
[00:51:13] two people a relatively short distance with a relatively small amount of stuff and the the
[00:51:18] great thing about the arcamoto is it's actually really fun to drive it so I can understand why
[00:51:23] you know people would want to jump in a robotaxi in in sort of if you're if you're accustomed to the
[00:51:30] car and then and the really non-joyful aspect that is driving most cars most of the time
[00:51:36] I can see why you would want to just get in and have it do the hard work and
[00:51:40] you know you can send some more tweets out or something but with the arcamoto that piece
[00:51:46] of it I think I think people are actually going to want to drive it drive this platform
[00:51:50] themselves for a long time and autonomy presents a really nice way of just sort of
[00:51:56] getting you the vehicle you need when you need it I completely agree and I'm a big proponent
[00:52:02] of public transportation especially when it's electric but I do think there were some challenges
[00:52:09] it was facing before the pandemic and I think moving forward like I mean I remember when I
[00:52:15] was living in Portland when I was going to go out to meet friends I would take one of the
[00:52:21] BMW and Mercedes had that car to go program so it'd be kind of fun to drive a car leave it and
[00:52:26] then have some drinks with friends and then I've taken Uber home and that's where I think that
[00:52:31] that perfectly aligns with that where it's kind of have fun to drive something before you go
[00:52:35] out to meet with friends go have some fun and then be able to go home safely in a way and not
[00:52:39] have to worry about it and I think the scale and especially doing that fully electric and with a
[00:52:45] much greater speed and the safety of having just exactly what you need will really be
[00:52:53] moving forward a big part of it I think public transportation definitely has a lot to still be
[00:53:01] a part of the conversation moving forward but I just think even with some of the arguments
[00:53:06] people make around congestion with autonomy and some of these things we're seeing especially on the
[00:53:10] software side of really just being not reactive but being much better proactively trying to take
[00:53:16] riders through different locations and other technologies especially with even what you're
[00:53:21] talking about along with food delivery and these other delivery systems I just think that the
[00:53:28] speed will kind of play into that is the future whether there gets pushed back from certain
[00:53:35] ideas of it or not and all things said I think everyone wins it'll be cleaner it'll be faster
[00:53:41] and I think it'll be more cost effective in a lot of ways especially in the long term so everyone
[00:53:46] can have kind of a part of that. Yeah just to follow on to soliloquy yeah well no it's good
[00:53:54] but I think that the public transport piece is really important to note there's there's
[00:53:59] definitely a component of Arcimoto that is about transportation equity that is that you know
[00:54:05] sustainable transportation ultimately won't happen unless the solutions for sustainable mobility are
[00:54:11] affordable by basically everybody and so yeah even in the autonomous robotaxi world having a
[00:54:20] platform that costs you know a third of the cost of a full-size electric vehicle platform
[00:54:27] that takes up a third of the space in terms of parking that uses much less energy to charge
[00:54:32] those have direct equity impacts on those who are least able to afford mobility today
[00:54:39] and that's definitely a piece of what we are looking at and thinking when we think
[00:54:47] we're watching as our local transit district I think really starts to rethink their
[00:54:52] their their reason in the world which is you know it's not about being a bus service it's about
[00:55:01] being a mobility provider and having the right tools for the job for each of their customers
[00:55:11] is going to be really important so we're definitely looking at how does this last mile
[00:55:17] platform solution that we've built fit in with the sort of the overall tapestry of of transportation
[00:55:24] and I think that sums it up perfectly because I think even speaking from my own experience when
[00:55:29] I lived in st. john's in Portland I had a super outback as a classic Oregonian that finally
[00:55:36] died after 320,000 miles and I said you know what uh Portland's got one of the best bus
[00:55:44] systems that's going to be the closest thing to me and even then I did it for a week and it was
[00:55:50] one way an hour and 15 minutes and just for everything as like as much as I want to be
[00:55:56] mister like sustainable transportation supporting good things the two and a half hour
[00:56:01] time cost per day just did not make it worth it and so I got a car again and I think it's
[00:56:08] what I really like about your technology is it does make it not only cost effective in a success
[00:56:14] accessible but I just don't think people are fully understanding the time penalty that people
[00:56:22] are paying for some of these systems and I think there's a lot of smart people such as what you're
[00:56:26] doing at your company that are really helping move the needle to not only bring down the cost so a
[00:56:31] lot of more people can access it but do it in a get time back so they can go do their hobbies
[00:56:37] go be with their families record podcasts or whatever the hell people want to do so
[00:56:43] I think this is all great I would be interested to hear oh yeah go for it
[00:56:50] and I think there is definitely a case for obviously there's a case for sort of high density
[00:56:58] long haul fixed route transport so if you have major transportation corridors you've got
[00:57:05] subways and high capacity buses there is there is that that absolutely has a role to play
[00:57:14] the those solutions have a role to play in the transportation system of the future but what we
[00:57:19] found is that when I did the back of the envelope math I was like well our solution is going to
[00:57:24] be more efficient per passenger mile than than light rail when you add up all of the
[00:57:30] times that the trains are running and so on and so forth that the if we can make it
[00:57:36] cost less and be more efficient than the most efficient forms of today's public transit
[00:57:42] that's that's a huge win for for the public I completely agree and I even think even if it's
[00:57:48] a little more expensive in the short term just that many people and even if it needs to be
[00:57:52] subsidized for others to make it more equitable just the return on it will pay back
[00:57:58] I think pretty quickly but I realized we're kind of coming up on the top of the hour so
[00:58:04] I would be just kind of curious we talked about COVID we talked about everything that's happening
[00:58:08] and just the shift from EVs from even five years ago to 18 months ago to today and obviously one
[00:58:17] of the big things is now with the Biden administration a lot of the things that they're
[00:58:20] trying to push are obviously very pro electric vehicle I'd just be curious to
[00:58:25] get your thoughts on that and then with your space I'd be I'd be curious to learn
[00:58:33] what you think what you would like to see or what you think whether that be from private or public
[00:58:39] to really make a big impact to kind of keep this momentum and even accelerate further
[00:58:44] for people getting into electric vehicles well I and on to the first question we have been
[00:58:51] obviously very heartened by the statements coming out from the Biden administration about
[00:58:56] vehicle electrification about really stepping up to address climate change and I'm also just
[00:59:06] as we've seen the vaccine deployment accelerate I think having an administration that can really
[00:59:15] work effectively sort of top to bottom to get things done is a very good thing we are in
[00:59:23] in the process of dialoguing with the Department of Energy about a loan from the advanced
[00:59:29] technology vehicle manufacturing loan program for really a significant piece of the funding of our
[00:59:37] go to go to mass production step and all of these elements have have a piece to play
[00:59:44] in that discussion I when you when you think about transportation equity when you think about
[00:59:50] really pushing the bounds of energy efficiency of vehicles when you think about the fact that
[00:59:56] the transportation system isn't just the vehicles on the road it's also the roads themselves and so
[01:00:02] if we can make more efficient use of our asphalt assets that does good things for our cities across
[01:00:09] the board and so I think we've I would say that the arcamoto in my estimation the arcamoto mission
[01:00:17] and story is on point for what I'm hearing out of DC so we look forward to to really
[01:00:24] pushing that dialogue forward and then you're here that the second question you had there was
[01:00:31] kind of more I mean we've really we've really hit the big picture here from what I can
[01:00:37] I guess they the only other sort of recent development that we've had is we we did acquire
[01:00:44] our company or did our first acquisition this quarter in order to really establish the bounds
[01:00:52] of arcamotos the space in the market that we want to play in and I think what we're going
[01:00:59] to see from our team is it's really a product family that goes from true micro mobility so
[01:01:08] you know bicycle scooter like motorcycle class of vehicle all the way up to what we do today
[01:01:15] but that's that's the gap that we want to want to really excel in and and and lead the way
[01:01:23] forward on in terms of products that make a meaningful shift towards sustainability.
[01:01:30] Yeah and can you just share a little bit more briefly about the acquisition because the technology
[01:01:35] is really interesting and if there's anything you can kind of share about behind the
[01:01:41] acquisition and what you're excited about and how if we're going to be able to see this
[01:01:45] soon implemented in some of your vehicles. I can't give away the secret to soon until we
[01:01:50] actually show you know we want to do the tada here and I don't want to jump the gun on the team
[01:01:58] but it's so the company is tilting a company called Tilting Motorworks and their founder
[01:02:05] Bob Myle super sharp engineer who really cracked the code on how to make a two wheel in front
[01:02:14] one wheel and back tilting three wheeler and what they their product to date is just a bolt-on kit
[01:02:25] for existing motorcycles. Harleys and Honda Gold Wings and and just you know sort of the big
[01:02:34] touring bikes because a big challenge in that market space is that as you have an aging
[01:02:40] rider demographic that doesn't want it they don't want to fall over that you know you think about
[01:02:45] some of those really big bikes when they fall over it takes multiple people to lift them off the
[01:02:50] ground. You dump your partner once and you're never getting back on that bike again so
[01:02:57] it's a it's a really interesting technology solution for that problem to turn a two wheeler
[01:03:04] into a three wheeler that gives you the real foot feel of a two wheel vehicle
[01:03:10] but that wasn't the reason we're definitely going to continue that that product line
[01:03:15] but that wasn't the real reason why why we teamed up. We teamed up to build something
[01:03:20] at the very other end of the market which is in the much more of the very lightweight
[01:03:26] bicycle scooter class and to deliver a product that is I think going to be I mean it's
[01:03:37] I'm very very very excited about it. It is I think it is going to be it's got some pieces of it
[01:03:43] not just the tilting tech but some other things that we're doing that I've not seen done on any
[01:03:49] other vehicle before and yeah I can't wait to tell you about it but it's going to be a while
[01:03:55] yet before we put that out there. So this tech is not to go on our current products this is
[01:04:02] this is for really a whole new line that's going to be you know our the main team is focused
[01:04:09] very squarely on getting platform number one up to scale mass production to solve kind of the
[01:04:16] solve the car problem in a much more efficient way in a much lighter weight way the things
[01:04:22] that people are using cars for today. This new line of products is about you know yet another
[01:04:29] order of magnitude reduction in weight and cost and improvements in efficiency for the kind of
[01:04:38] true micro mobility piece of the market space and you know between the two lines we really see
[01:04:43] that's that should be should comprise that that space should comprise the vast majority of trips
[01:04:51] in the the sort of city of the future. Can you at least share when we might be able to expect
[01:04:58] to hear more or? I have a well we report earnings at the end of this month and I'm pretty sure
[01:05:05] that I'm gonna at least re regurgitate what I just told you throw throw a few more tidbits in
[01:05:12] there. Okay well we'll make sure we have our listeners listen for any developments on that as
[01:05:17] well but um Mark I just want to say thank you this has been great to catch up hear more where
[01:05:22] Archimodo is for those listening where can they find out more where's the best if they're interested
[01:05:29] in maybe test driving one or uh rendering one. Archimodo.com is our website you can sign
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[01:05:43] interested in you know our investor documentation public filings earnings reports and stuff like that
[01:05:51] and we are on Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and Instagram and we are constantly
[01:05:58] dishing out content and updates and so on we're pretty uh we're we're we're staying to ground
[01:06:05] still in terms of in market events for the most part we sent our first vaccinated team member
[01:06:13] out to Daytona for bike week but until we get the whole team really ready to ready to face the
[01:06:21] post pandemic world we're gonna we're gonna keep it chill on the on the on the events front
[01:06:26] but but we're still definitely getting vehicles into the market we're going to be opening up
[01:06:33] new rental locations soon and so um yeah lots of lots of ways to plug in.
[01:06:39] Completely understand and that's great to hear so I'll definitely look forward to speaking
[01:06:43] with you soon again when uh when we can maybe even test drive one in person but um definitely
[01:06:50] maybe on another panel this this has been great so I just want to say thank you for your time.
[01:06:55] If the last time you drove was 2012 we got to get you back behind the handlebars here so
[01:06:59] I mean that weight savings kind of blew my mind going down from I mean what is it at now?
[01:07:04] It's the the production version is about 1300 pounds. Wow. The the original goal I had
[01:07:11] was 1460 and I can't remember exactly why I picked that number but it was uh
[01:07:19] that was the one we kept trying to get to and just couldn't get there with the previous architecture
[01:07:25] we had and then of course generation eight just blew way past it so I think we will eventually get
[01:07:31] this this you know subsequent iterations of our present platform will probably get under 1100
[01:07:39] and we definitely have an efficiency we're like 173.7 miles per gallon efficient right now
[01:07:46] equivalent uh for uh for city driving we want to in over the long haul we want to get that into the
[01:07:53] into the 200s at least so we do see opportunities for continuing to improve the efficiency of
[01:08:00] of our of our principal platform. I mean even what you said going from 2300 which is still
[01:08:06] by most cars today very light uh down to 1300 and if you're even able to get to that
[01:08:11] that's just that's mind blowing so um thank you again for your time today Mark and look forward
[01:08:17] to speaking with you again soon. Likewise Chase really appreciate it. Thanks for joining us be sure
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