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.
03:21And it's in the process of assembly, but mostly it's waiting on completion of the battery pack.
03:30The 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.
03:57Hi, sure, of course.
03:59Yeah.
03:59This is so cool that you got this done.
04:01I'm so impressed with you.
04:02I mean, that's an amazing thing.
04:04We 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.
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