Making vehicles is hard. Especially if you're relatively new to the game.
Still, if people never tried to do hard things, humanity wouldn't have gotten itself to where we are. Now, you can (and plenty will) certainly debate whether that's a good thing or not, but the fact remains.
Electric vehicle maker Arcimoto has been around for a minute or two, but it's been having a rough couple of years. From numerous recalls for many of its vehicles in 2023 to less than stellar sales, things weren't looking great to start out in 2024.
And then, in late March, a Portland, Oregon-based manufacturer called DWFritz Automation won its $1 million breach of contract claim against Arcimoto. To add insult to injury, the EV company will also be required to pay an additional 9 percent annual interest until the full amount of the outstanding debt is satisfied.
Ouch.
As the Portland Business Journal reports, it owes at least $9.5 million to its vendors as of February 2024, it had to delay filing its 2023 annual report, and it's also shed over 60 percent of the employees it had on the roster in 2022.
Bearing all that in mind, then, it probably won't come as a surprise to learn that the Arcimoto website has been down since at least Wednesday, May 22, 2024. It remains down at the time of writing on Friday, May 24, 2024.
Oregon local station KLCC spoke to Kathy Pusztavari, the person who runs trusted Arcimoto resource Arcimoto Hub. She told them that reaching the company has been impossible for the last three months, and advised owners to try visiting Arcimoto headquarters in person to try to get parts and/or information.
Why not just call, you ask? It appears that Arcimoto has also shut down its phone lines with no notice to its customer base.
It's not totally clear what's going on, but none of these combined facts look promising if you're an owner of one of its vehicles. You hope for the best, of course, but in the end, you don't know what you're going to get.
RideApart has reached out to Arcimoto through an intermediary to ask for comment on these matters. We will update this piece if and when we receive a response.
