Rick: The coolest feature to me is that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history.
We get so many reactions from people watching it, It's amazing.
Rick: Hi I'm Rick Woodbury, I'm president and founder of commuter cars.
I started this company 21 years ago
It was based on an idea that I came up with, in 1982.
I used to drive a Porsche from Beverly Hills to Hermosa beach everyday, and the traffic was horrendous.
And I noticed that everybody around me was a single occupant in the car, taking up the whole lane.
So I thought everybody wants to get from point A to point B efficiently.
And in cities like Los Angeles,
there's really no centre there's no hub
that's just everybody goes everywhere.
I don't think there's any other answer except doubling lane capacity.
This is the tango car, a Super Slim electric vehicle
That has created Rick's answer to congested city driving.
Rick: The coolest feature to me is
that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history.
same width as a Harley Davidson motorcycle,
you just come up to the stoplight
but instead of waiting in line behind all the other cars
you just go right up the line in between them. and you filter.
On the inside well,
it's very comfortable
you're right in the centre of the car,
you're on the driver's side on both sides.
So...
it's very convenient look out either window,
you've got better visibility
you can see exactly what's happening around you.
You've got better visibility than any car I've ever had.
You can fit two people
This is a Momo steering wheel.
This is actually used by race cars
the mo-tech dash. Four point shoulder harness
pilots of commercial aircraft use these exact harnesses,
With a comfortable and easy to drive interior,
What is it like to drive a car like this?
Rick: It handles really well,
we know it has a super low centre of gravity.
being that it has a dry sump engine that's opposed.
so it's got a lower centre of gravity than just about any other car.
I've had it up to 120 miles an hour
The length is 102 inches same width of a semi truck.
so it can park perpendicular to the curb.
This is the chassis,
And this is the roll cage
that is certified by FIAA for 200 mile an hour race car,
there's about four times more
impact protection here than there is in a
standard production car. To me this car is safer
than any other car on the road because you can avoid accidents
better than any other car.
This has the same rollover threshold as a 911 Porsche.
It turns instantly,
unlike a motorcycle, which has to counter steer
before it can turn to avoid a collision.
The Tango debuted in 2005.
And after actor George Clooney bought one,
the car became a runaway success.
Due to the nature of the build, the company can only produce a certain amount.
Rick: Took 10 employees about three years
to get nine and a half cars built
and this is number 10.
Been quite a few more years,
but also it's a lot more complicated.
We've spent a couple of years just developing
the new lithium pack for this one.
But there have been
constant upgrades over the years
just to get the lithium batteries
and the management systems to handle them.
This is the car that we sold to a customer in Perth, Australia.
And it's...
in the process of assembly,
but mostly it's waiting on completion of battery pack. The battery box is here,
the whole bottom of the car is battery
there's 90 kilowatt hours of battery in there, which will
give us about 300 miles of range.
With all the work needed to create these slender vehicles.
The production costs can't be that cheap.
Rick: These cars have cost an average of $420,000 each to build. and unsurprisingly, out on the road,
this car gets a lot of attention.
Rick: Sure of course.
Rick: We get so many reactions from people watching it and it's amazing.
Sometimes we have two people,
both the driver and a passenger both photographing
the car as we're going down the highway.
gotten a lot of attention.