Electric trike-maker Arcimoto is going public — here's a closer look at its $12,000 'Fun Utility Vehicle' (FUV)

Archimoto SRK

It's easy to tell the difference between a motorcycle and car, right? One has two wheels, one has four.

Except that there are now plenty of vehicles available that have three wheels.

There's the Can-Am Spyder, the Campagna Motors T-REX, and the Polaris Slingshot, to name a few. There's also the Elio, which recently paid a visit to out New York office.

Soon to join the party is the all-electric Arcimoto SRK (those aforementioned rides all run on gas), effectively a $12,000 tandem three-wheeler motorcycle that can be outfitted with a fully enclosed "cabin" or converted to delivery van duty.

Arcimoto is serious enough about its ambitions that it just launched an unusual type of IPO, selling stock for $6.50 per share and throwing the investment opportunity open to retail customers (versus a more conventional offering, in which only the pros would get in initially). The goal is to list the company on the Nasdaq exchange, and according to a statement, the company has undertaken that process.

“Our thesis since the beginning has been to develop an incredibly fun and highly useful vehicle at a disruptive price point the mass market can afford,” Mark Frohnmayer, President and founder of Arcimoto, said in a statement. “We believe the Arcimoto SRK will deliver on that vision: our target base model price of $11,900 is about a third of what a typical new electric car costs."

The offering is a bit off the grid, being handled by WR Hambrecht + Co, a San Francisco-based investment bank that has taken companies public using an "Open IPO" model. Even the reserved ticker symbol is offbeat: FUV, for "Fun Utility Vehicle," Arcimoto's term for its electric trike. The IPO is what's known as a "Regulation A" offering.

It could raise as much as $28 million, according to reports.

I've sampled the T-REX and the Slingshot, which run on gas, as does the Spyder. Obviously, the SRK is something different.

It might be the ultimate city vehicle. And I checked it out:

(This post has been updated from its original version.)

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