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  • 2 days ago
A MAN claims he has created a car that might solve the world’s traffic congestion problems. Rick Woodbury from Spokane, Washington USA, is the president, founder and sole employee of ‘Commuter Cars.’ The carmaker’s flagship model is the 2005 super slim two-seater Tango T600, a high-performance electric car that preceded Tesla. Rick told us: “I started this company 21 years ago – it was based on an idea that I came up with in 1982.” He was inspired by the shocking traffic congestion he had to face on a daily basis. “I used to drive a Porsche from Beverly Hills to Hermosa Beach every day and the traffic was horrendous,” explained Rick. What really made Rick think about a solution was the fact that in most of the cars he would see in his commute were occupied by lone drivers. “I noticed that everybody around me was a single occupant in a car, taking up the whole lane,” Rick said. Living and working in Los Angeles also helped inspire Rick’s unique creation. “I thought, everyone 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, everybody goes everywhere,” explained Rick. For him, there is a simple solution, and that is reducing the width that vehicles take up on the road so that 2 can fit comfortably in a single lane. “I don’t think there’s any other answer except doubling lane capacity,” said Rick. With a length of 102 inches this micro car can be parked just about anywhere, just like you would with a motorbike. Rick said: “The length is the same width of a semi-truck so I can park perpendicular to the curb.”The selling point of this vehicle is that it can drive in-between cars better than any other car. “The coolest feature for me to that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history,” said Rick. Much like a motorbike, the Tango T500 can drive right up to the stop line of traffic lights.

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Transcript
00:00The coolest feature to me is that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history.
00:05We get so many reactions from people watching it. It's amazing.
00:11Hi, 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.
00:50It's 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.
01:02Well, 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.
01:10You just come up to a stoplight, but instead of waiting in line behind all the other cars,
01:15you just go right up the line in between and you filter.
01:19On the inside, well, it's very comfortable.
01:21You're right in the center of the car, you know, you're on the driver's side on both sides.
01:26So it's very convenient.
01:28You can look 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.
01:34You can fit two people.
01:36This has a Momo steering wheel.
01:38This is actually used by race cars, the MoTeC Dash.
01:41Four-point shoulder harness.
01:42The pilots of commercial aircraft use these exact harnesses.
01:46With a comfortable and easy-to-drive interior, what is it like to drive a car like this?
01:52It handles really well.
01:53We 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, so the length is 102 inches, same width of a semi-truck,
02:09so 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.
02:29To 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.
02:37It turns instantly, unlike a motorcycle, which has to counter-steer before it can turn to avoid a collision.
02:43The Tango debuted in 2005, and after actor George Clooney bought one, the car became a runaway success.
02:51Due to the nature of the build, the company can only produce a certain amount.
02:55It took 10 employees about three years to get nine and a half cars built, and this is number 10.
03:02It's been quite a few more years, but also it's a lot more complicated.
03:05We've spent a couple of years just developing the new lithium pack for this one.
03:10But there have been constant upgrades over the years just to get the lithium batteries and the management systems to handle them.
03:18This is the car that we sold to a customer in Perth, Australia.
03:22And it's in the process of assembly, but mostly it's waiting on completion of the battery pack.
03:29The battery box is here.
03:31The whole bottom of the car is battery.
03:33There's 90 kilowatt hours of battery in there, which will give us about 300 miles of range.
03:39With all the work needed to create these slender vehicles, the production costs can't be that cheap.
03:43These cars have cost an average of $420,000 each to build.
03:48And unsurprisingly, out on the road, this car gets a lot of attention.
03:51We get so many reactions from people watching it.
04:06It's amazing.
04:07Sometimes we have two people, both the driver and a passenger, both photographing the car as we're going down the highway.
04:13It grabs a lot of attention.
04:14It grabs a lot of attention.
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