Elon Musk didn t understand what Mark Frohnmayer was building. Frohnmayer is the founder of Arcimoto, a Eugene company that makes lightweight electric vehicles that just might be as revolutionary for Oregon and the world as Musk s Tesla. Strangely enough, they knew each other before either was famous. A decade ago, they car-camped together in the California hills with a mutual friend, Adeo Ressi, CEO of the Founder Institute. Back then, Musk was a mere multimillionaire running a money-losing electric car company, and Frohnmayer was the scion of an Oregon political family who had a few bucks in his pocket and the crazy idea to build two-passenger, three-wheeled, doorless EVs in Eugene, Oregon.
national usage fee alliance 28 states are in various stages of following down the same road. but there are many concerns. like privacy. two of the three orego systems track and store a car s every move. to put a gps monitor in everybody s car, you know the government already knows too much about us as it is. reporter: others question the cost. getting the gas tax is cheap. but orego vendors will eat up 40 cents of every dollar collected. for those not used to paying any gas tax, it could be a whole new sticker shock every month. jeff fallon of drive oregon supports the usage fee to a point. we need to be subsidizing and invent incentivizeing electric cars. reporter: right now the program is voluntary being capped at 5,000 participants. but an odot official told meet ultimate goal toys have some form of pay by the mile be mandatory in the future and change the way everyone pays for