00:00The coolest feature to me is that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history.
00:06We get so many reactions from people watching it, it's amazing.
00:12Hi, I'm Rick Woodbury. I'm president and founder of Commuter Cars.
00:18I started this company 21 years ago.
00:24It was based on an idea that I came up with in 1982.
00:30I used to drive a Porsche from Beverly Hills to Hermosa Beach every day and the traffic was horrendous.
00:38And I noticed that everybody around me was a single occupant in a car, taking up a whole lane.
00:43So I thought, everybody wants to get from point A to point B efficiently.
00:47And in cities like Los Angeles, there's really no center, there's no hub, just everybody goes everywhere.
00:53I don't think there's any other answer except doubling lane capacity.
00:56This is the Tango Car, a super slim electric vehicle that has created Rick's answer to congested city driving.
01:03Well, the coolest feature to me is that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history.
01:07Same width as a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
01:09You just come up to stoplight, but instead of waiting in line behind all the other cars, you just go right up the line in between and you filter.
01:19On the inside, well, it's very comfortable. You're right in the center of the car.
01:23You know, you're on the driver's side on both sides, so it's very convenient.
01:28Look out either window, you've got better visibility, you can see exactly what's happening around you.
01:32You've got better visibility than any car I've ever had.
01:35You can fit two people. This has a Momo steering wheel.
01:39This is actually used by race cars, the Motec Dash.
01:42Four point shoulder harness, the pilots of commercial aircraft use these exact harnesses.
01:47With a comfortable and easy to drive interior, what is it like to drive a car like this?
01:50It handles really well. We know it has a super low center of gravity, being that it has a dry sump engine that's opposed,
01:59so it's got a lower center of gravity than just about any other car.
02:02I've had it up to 120 miles an hour or so.
02:05The length is 102 inches, the same width of a semi truck, so it can park perpendicular to the curb.
02:10This is the chassis, and this is the roll cage that is certified by FIA for a 200 mile an hour race car.
02:24There's about four times more impact protection here than there is in a standard production car.
02:30To me, this car is safer than any other car on the road, because it can avoid accidents better than any other car.
02:34This has the same roll over threshold as a 911 Porsche.
02:38It turns instantly, unlike a motorcycle, which has to counter-steer before it can turn to avoid a collision.
02:45Due to the nature of the build, the company can only produce a certain amount.
02:49It took 10 employees about three years to get nine and a half cars built, and this is number 10.
02:55It's been quite a few more years, but also it's a lot more complicated.
02:58We've spent a couple of years just developing the new lithium pack for this one.
03:03But there have been constant upgrades over the years just to get the lithium batteries and the management systems to handle them.
03:10This is the car that we sold to a customer in Perth, Australia.
03:15And it's in the process of assembly, but mostly it's waiting on completion of the battery pack.
03:23The battery box is here.
03:24The whole bottom of the car is battery.
03:27There's 90 kilowatt hours of battery in there, which will give us about 300 miles of range.
03:32With all the work needed to create these slender vehicles, the production costs can't be that cheap.
03:37These cars have cost an average of $420,000 each to build.
03:41And unsurprisingly, out on the road, this car gets a lot of attention.
03:44We get so many reactions from people watching it, it's amazing.
04:00Sometimes we have two people, both the driver and a passenger, both photographing the car as we're going down the highway.
04:06It grabs a lot of attention.
04:07It grabs a lot of attention.
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