oil pan 4 — Actually, it's about the same amount of time. Elio did five prototypes, Arcimoto did eight. It's the difference in outlook between the corporatist/automotive viewpoint and gamers (fail early, fail often).
In his speechifying today, Mark Frohnmayer said they build them in Eugene partially to prove their process is not geographically dependent. It's replicable elsewhere.
While they don't chase grants like Elio (or whatever that Shreveport facility represented, certainly not a place to build their prototypes.... ahem), they are now one of two electric vehicle manufacturers listed on NASDAQ. They had this shareholder meeting (I believe) on the anniversary of their IPO. For $2.48 I could have sat in.