Self-Build Small Electric Car Cost $420,000 To Build

  • 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.
00:06We 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 Hormosa Beach every day,
00:34and the traffic was horrendous.
00:35And I noticed that everybody around me was a single occupant in a car,
00:39taking up a whole lane.
00:41So I thought, everybody wants to get from point A to point B efficiently.
00:44And in cities like Los Angeles, there's really no centre,
00:47there's no hub, it's just everybody goes everywhere.
00:52I don't think there's any other answer except doubling lane capacity.
00:54This is the Tango Car, a super-slim electric vehicle
00:57that has created Rick's answer to congested city driving.
01:00Well, the coolest feature to me is that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history.
01:05Same width as a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
01:08You just come up to a stoplight,
01:10but instead of waiting in line behind all the other cars,
01:12you just go right up the line in between and you filter.
01:16On the inside, well, it's very comfortable.
01:19You're right in the centre of the car.
01:20You know, you're on the driver's side on both sides.
01:23So it's very convenient.
01:26You look out either window, you've got better visibility,
01:28you can see exactly what's happening around you.
01:30You've got better visibility than any car I've ever had.
01:33You can fit two people.
01:34This has a Momo steering wheel.
01:36This is actually used by race cars, the Motec Dash.
01:39Four-point shoulder harness, the pilots of commercial aircraft use these exact harnesses.
01:44With a comfortable and easy-to-drive interior,
01:46what is it like to drive a car like this?
01:50It handles really well.
01:51We know it has a super-low centre of gravity,
01:53being that it has a dry-sump engine that's opposed,
01:56so it's got a lower centre of gravity than just about any other car.
01:59I've had it up to 120 miles an hour or so.
02:02The length is 102 inches, the same width of a semi-truck,
02:06so it can park perpendicular to the curb.
02:13This is the chassis, and this is the roll cage
02:17that is certified by FIA for 200 miles an hour.
02:21There's about four times more impact protection here
02:23than there is in a standard production car.
02:26To me, this car is safer than any other car on the road
02:29because it can avoid accidents better than any other car.
02:31This has the same rollover threshold as a 911 Porsche.
02:34It turns instantly, unlike a motorcycle,
02:36which has to counter-steer before it can turn to avoid a collision.
02:40The Tango debuted in 2005, and after actor George Clooney bought one,
02:44the car became a runaway success.
02:46Due to the nature of the build, the company can only produce a certain amount.
02:49It took ten employees about three years to get nine and a half cars built,
02:53and this is number ten.
02:56It's been quite a few more years, but also it's a lot more complicated.
03:00We've spent a couple of years just developing the new lithium pack for this one,
03:04but there have been constant upgrades over the years
03:07just to get the lithium batteries and the management systems things right.
03:11It's a lot more complicated than you'd think.
03:13Get 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,
03:26but mostly it's waiting on completion of the battery pack.
03:29The battery box is here.
03:31This whole, the whole bottom of the car is battery.
03:33There's 90 kilowatt hours of battery in there,
03:36which will give us about 300 miles of range.
03:38With all the work needed to create these slender vehicles,
03:41the 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 a major thing.
04:04We get so many reactions from people watching, and it's amazing.
04:06Sometimes we have two people,
04:08both the driver and a passenger,
04:10both photographing the car as we're going down the highway.
04:13Grabs a lot of attention.

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