FUV Owner Experiences
#11
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Thanks for the writeup! I love your imitation tailbox. That's the exact sort of bin I plan on hauling around in mine regularly, so it's great to see it fits on the back!

I'll bet onlookers loved the orange one in Corvallis.
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#12
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My thoughts on:
Brakes- the regen is very strong and the foot brake works really good. The first drive that Susan and then I did was just around the parking lot at the AMP. The first time we both used the foot brake it felt really weak, having to use a lot of pressure. Checking out the pedal a bit I realized that there is a lever bar coming down to the brake pad and that if your foot/shoe is too far forward one presses on the lever and not the pad and does not have the proper leverage when applying the brakes. Once we realized this it has not been an issue at all. The regen is very strong and will bring the vehicle to a complete stop without using the foot brake in most stopping situations. That can cause the driver to "forget" about the foot brake. But under certain situations the foot brake must be used - after stopping when on a slope or in a quicker stopping situation which I had one time when I was doing 30-35 and a light changed, I pulled on regen but was not stopping fast enough so I added the foot brake. In any stop where one needs to STOP now one must use the foot brake. This is a training thing and it needs to be reinforced with practice .
There is also the possibility that if the batteries are full and one is going down a long hill and using regen that the controller will limit the amount of regen to protect the battery. The dash screen does have a display that shows the amount of charge the battery will take - I will go into the display in a future post.
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#13
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Yellow in his new home in Newport.

[Image: 198_B2_E33_C5_BE_419_A_A02_E_50768185_EBAE.jpg]
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#14
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CG, no name yet? Us either still calling he,she,it RED

Red has been performing great. 500 on the odometer . We will reach Olympia tomorrow and I will give a write up then. I keep losing internet connection so am rushing this
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#15
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Before I get in to our experiences with our Signature Series FUV I want to explain a bit about the SS and their part in Arcimoto's on going development of the FUV as it moves towards total FUV production.  The SS vehicles are an essential part of this development. Both Creative Guy and we (PAX) know and knew from the start what we were getting into and volunteered to be part of the development process ie. guinea pigs.  Our vehicles are not the finished version but do have many of the finished version attributes. Our vehicles are collecting data and transmitting it back to the Arcimoto engineers. The final product is planned to be lighter than the SS by at least 200#s and maybe more. There could be changes to any number of control units, charging systems, dashboard displays and other items. We will get most of these upgrades but not the lower weight ones.  Doors and tail boxes are also in our future. Our vehicles have 1/4 doors which are connected to the hinges and latching devices attached to the frames. The trailer hitch is not resolved yet.
I also should probably stress that as I see it- one of the main goals of Arcimoto is to make a commuter type around the town vehicle, not to make a long distance travelling vehicle (like we used it for on this trip)

In this post I will give some general impressions and not get into things like mileage until I have a chance to compile the data my wife and I kept and compare it to some of what Arcimoto collected.

WE both had a fun time on this trip and took our time coming home. We had to, as every where we went people asked us about the FUV and we spent a fair amount of time talking to them.

RED is now at its new home. We left Eugene last Friday about 2:13 in the afternoon with 107.2 miles on the odometer. We arrived in Olympia this afternoon with 576.5 miles on it. Both my wife and I drove the vehicle and even though it took us a little time to adapt to the controls and steering it wasn't hard to do. Things like the brakes which I posted on earlier but also thing like parking brake release, starting the motor and the big one - remembering to manually eradicate the turn signals. Following CG from Corvallis to Newport helped me embed the action into my brain although it still slips out occasionally. 

The power steering works great and the settings are close to optimal. It is strong at low speeds and eases off at higher speeds. I might want a bit more on upper speeds as there does not really seem to be any real feel of the road on this vehicle, at least to me. It does corner well on winding roads although I did not push it very much. The FUV turns pretty sharp when cranked all the way over. The ends of the bars just clear the forward support tube that holds the window.

The seats are quite comfortable and interesting that they are not adjustable back and fore. This was not an issue as neither my wife or I had trouble reaching the handle bars or the foot brake. The bars are slightly adjustable and ours were lowered a bit. 
Visibility for the driver is excellent except a bit of distortion in the wind shield and at times a bit of reflection of the dash board when the sunlight hits just right. Neither is super critical but I will make sure  Arcimoto knows about both. The mirrors are pretty good but backing up is a bit tricky. I am  use to backing up my pickup truck(s) and the FUV is quite different as you cannot get a line by sighting along the side of the vehicle due to the tapering inward towards the rear. That and the slight convex shape of the mirror makes judging where the rear wheel is going to go a bit of a guess. I suspect practice will help make this easier.

The view forward from the back seat is obstructed by the seat back right in front of the rear seat passenger. A number of us have suggested that there be a screen on the back of the front seat fed by  a camera on the front of the vehicle with a controller that the rear passenger can use to direct the camera.   The other issue is that without doors the passenger gets a fair amount of wind.

The power of the motor was plenty for all my needs but I am not a racer and  never really opened it all the way up. There were times when we needed to be doing 55 or a bit more and it easily handled that but I suspect that the wind resistance without doors robbed a lot of power and juice.  

Charging - the Amps for charging is set at 13A for both 120 and 240. When we charged in a motel with out a J1772 unit and I was using a 120 power outlet I turned my EVSE down to 10A max just so it would not blow a circuit breaker. Took most of the night to charge but not an issue.
There is a cooling system that cools the charging and the motor controller. It is a water system with a small radiator and a fan. The fan is fairly loud when on. It goes on at the full 13 amps, both 120 and 240 but does not go on at the lower amps of 10 on 120V

The other place where this vehicle was a little lacking is baggage carrying capacity. We used some creative packing and carried more than we needed and it wen well. No rain made it a piece of cake. 

That it for now- I want to start compiling the data on mileage but have to wait until charging tonight is completed.
Rod
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#16
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(06-22-2018, 03:39 AM)PAX Wrote: Before I get in to our experiences with our Signature Series FUV I want to explain a bit about the SS and their part in Arcimoto's on going development of the FUV as it moves towards total FUV production.  The SS vehicles are an essential part of this development. Both Creative Guy and we (PAX) know and knew from the start what we were getting into and volunteered to be part of the development process ie. guinea pigs.  Our vehicles are not the finished version but do have many of the finished version attributes. Our vehicles are collecting data and transmitting it back to the Arcimoto engineers. The final product is planned to be lighter than the SS by at least 200#s and maybe more. There could be changes to any number of control units, charging systems, dashboard displays and other items. We will get most of these upgrades but not the lower weight ones.  Doors and tail boxes are also in our future. Our vehicles have 1/4 doors which are connected to the hinges and latching devices attached to the frames. The trailer hitch is not resolved yet.
I also should probably stress that as I see it- one of the main goals of Arcimoto is to make a commuter type around the town vehicle, not to make a long distance travelling vehicle (like we used it for on this trip)

In this post I will give some general impressions and not get into things like mileage until I have a chance to compile the data my wife and I kept and compare it to some of what Arcimoto collected.

WE both had a fun time on this trip and took our time coming home. We had to, as every where we went people asked us about the FUV and we spent a fair amount of time talking to them.

RED is now at its new home. We left Eugene last Friday about 2:13 in the afternoon with 107.2 miles on the odometer. We arrived in Olympia this afternoon with 576.5 miles on it. Both my wife and I drove the vehicle and even though it took us a little time to adapt to the controls and steering it wasn't hard to do. Things like the brakes which I posted on earlier but also thing like parking brake release, starting the motor and the big one - remembering to manually eradicate the turn signals. Following CG from Corvallis to Newport helped me embed the action into my brain although it still slips out occasionally. 

The power steering works great and the settings are close to optimal. It is strong at low speeds and eases off at higher speeds. I might want a bit more on upper speeds as there does not really seem to be any real feel of the road on this vehicle, at least to me. It does corner well on winding roads although I did not push it very much. The FUV turns pretty sharp when cranked all the way over. The ends of the bars just clear the forward support tube that holds the window.

The seats are quite comfortable and interesting that they are not adjustable back and fore. This was not an issue as neither my wife or I had trouble reaching the handle bars or the foot brake. The bars are slightly adjustable and ours were lowered a bit. 
Visibility for the driver is excellent except a bit of distortion in the wind shield and at times a bit of reflection of the dash board when the sunlight hits just right. Neither is super critical but I will make sure  Arcimoto knows about both. The mirrors are pretty good but backing up is a bit tricky. I am  use to backing up my pickup truck(s) and the FUV is quite different as you cannot get a line by sighting along the side of the vehicle due to the tapering inward towards the rear. That and the slight convex shape of the mirror makes judging where the rear wheel is going to go a bit of a guess. I suspect practice will help make this easier.

The view forward from the back seat is obstructed by the seat back right in front of the rear seat passenger. A number of us have suggested that there be a screen on the back of the front seat fed by  a camera on the front of the vehicle with a controller that the rear passenger can use to direct the camera.   The other issue is that without doors the passenger gets a fair amount of wind.

The power of the motor was plenty for all my needs but I am not a racer and  never really opened it all the way up. There were times when we needed to be doing 55 or a bit more and it easily handled that but I suspect that the wind resistance without doors robbed a lot of power and juice.  

Charging - the Amps for charging is set at 13A for both 120 and 240. When we charged in a motel with out a J1772 unit and I was using a 120 power outlet I turned my EVSE down to 10A max just so it would not blow a circuit breaker. Took most of the night to charge but not an issue.
There is a cooling system that cools the charging and the motor controller. It is a water system with a small radiator and a fan. The fan is fairly loud when on. It goes on at the full 13 amps, both 120 and 240 but does not go on at the lower amps of 10 on 120V

The other place where this vehicle was a little lacking is baggage carrying capacity. We used some creative packing and carried more than we needed and it wen well. No rain made it a piece of cake. 

That it for now- I want to start compiling the data on mileage but have to wait until charging tonight is completed.
Rod
thanks PAX, great to hear about your experiences. I'm looking forward to your next post. It was very interesting to hear that AM is collecting data from your actual usage.
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#17
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Thanks for the info!  I appreciate the important role all the early adopter SS FUV Owners play in the complex process of developing/tweaking the production ready Retail Arcimoto.
 
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#18
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Thanks so much, PAX! This is exactly what we have been waiting for. Real world experience from non-affiliated customers. Your observations and feedback will play a key role in what the rest of us experience. The great news is that Arcimoto always has an open ear and an open mind to customer input. They truly want this to be the best experience possible.

Although AM has stated the top speed would be 80 mph, they have never given the impression that the FUV would be a highway touring vehicle. I have had to give a lot of thought to my desires for how it would fit my needs, and alter my expectations accordingly. Your findings on range will play a large role in what the FUV can do for me, but with a 90 mile daily commute, I am probably on the far edge of need versus desire.

Big thanks to you and CreativeGuy for being guinea pigs. Your impact on all this is priceless.
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#19
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Thanks for the report!

I for one intend to take mine out on the freeway in a regular basis, but it will only be for brief periods as I travel around town for work so I anticipate it will meet my needs just fine.
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#20
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AM has published specs for top speed and range which are actually a big part of the FUVs broad appeal. I think we should assume that AM will meet those goals. I also think it will be great to see some hard data so hopefully AM will be providing some soon. In the meantime I'm looking forward to more updates from PAX and Creative Guy on speed and range.
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