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260A0151 Frohnmayer and his dog Keira are in Arcimoto outside his house in Eugene. (Wesley Rapoint)

Mark Frohnmayer heard a strong protest. He is making doors for Arcimoto.

In the past two years, the Eugene-based electric car entrepreneur has built a three-wheel drill specially designed for short trips. Although Arcimoto's share price surged to $36 in February and is now stable at $8 per share, doubters still want to know whether Americans will jump on a motorcycle classified as a motorcycle but looks more like George Jett Mori designed an auto rickshaw car.

The most common question, especially in the rain in Oregon: Where is the door?

Frohnmayer answered this question in a conversation with reporter Anthony Effinger at TechfestNW on May 21. He said that Arcimoto is designing two types of doors for the Fun Utility Vehicle: it is now a half door, and there will soon be a detachable full door.

"I drove it all year round," Fronmeier said. He said that he imagined the FUV as a jeep: in most cases it is doorless, but there is a weatherproof cover if you want it. "We saw our early big market opportunities in the Sunbelt. This is really not a problem."

The door discussion is a natural result of cars and bicycles, and is related to a larger theme of Fron Meyer's speech on Friday: He is trying to reduce the size of American cars and reduce the square mile of cities that are clumping in the asphalt.

This week, this aspect of Arcimoto's mission takes on new significance as Ford unveiled plans for the F-150, America's most popular electric truck. The announcement boosted hopes that the country is moving away from fossil fuels.

This is one of the two reasons Frohnmayer founded Arcimoto. But the huge F-150 still takes up space. This is in sharp contrast to the second part of Frohnmayer's vision, which is to "make the city no longer bad."

He believes that the car-centric infrastructure has destroyed urban life in the United States. "When you think about the user experience of the city, it's lame," he said. "It's paved, it's loud, it smells bad, and you own these huge vehicles, posing a safety risk to others."

Frohnmayer said the problem starts with scale. American cars and trucks are simply too big for the tasks they are used to accomplish.

"A typical car weighs about 4,000 pounds," he said. "It's like 20 people on a good day. This is the entire offensive line of a professional football team. It is this quality that allows you to get a cup of coffee."

American cities are designed to accommodate these behemoths. He said that only by reducing the size of a typical vehicle can planners restore the city to a human scale.

Frohnmayer has previously described how FUV will be mainly used for short-distance city trips. But on Friday, he outlined the vision of an Arcimotos shared fleet, such as Portland's bike-sharing project Niketown. But there is a turning point: Automation may allow these vehicles to arrive at the driver's request, just like Uber that lets you drive.

Suddenly, 6 to 7 parking spaces for each car in a city's secondary school will become redundant. Maybe they will become something else: "We can use a smaller number of vehicles and take up much less space, and then use these spaces for other purposes, such as parks or housing."

If all this is whimsical for electric car companies that are still engaged in the door business, then Frohnmayer has released a more direct message: Arcimoto will launch a rental fleet in American cities this summer.

Two weeks ago, the first rental Arcimotos went on sale in San Diego.

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