00:00 The coolest feature to me is that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history.
00:04 We get so many reactions from people watching it, it's amazing.
00:08 Hi, I'm Rick Woodbury. I'm president and founder of Commuter Cars.
00:15 I started this company 21 years ago.
00:20 It was based on an idea that I came up with in 1982.
00:28 I used to drive a Porsche from Beverly Hills to Humos Beach every day, and the traffic was horrendous.
00:34 And I noticed that everybody around me was a single occupant in a car, taking up a whole lane.
00:39 So I thought, everybody wants to get from point A to point B efficiently.
00:43 And in cities like Los Angeles, there's really no centre, there's no hub, it's just everybody goes everywhere.
00:49 I don't think there's any other answer except doubling lane capacity.
00:53 This is the time to do it.
00:55 This is the Tango Car, a super slim electric vehicle that has created Rick's answer to congested city driving.
00:59 Well, the coolest feature to me is that it can get through traffic faster than any car in history.
01:03 Same width as a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
01:05 You just come up to a stoplight, but instead of waiting in line behind all the other cars, you just go right up the line in between and you filter.
01:11 On the inside, well, it's very comfortable.
01:13 You're right in the centre of the car.
01:15 You're on the driver's side on both sides of the road.
01:17 You're not in the middle of the road.
01:19 You're in the centre of the car.
01:21 So it's very convenient.
01:23 You can look out either window, you've got better visibility, you can see exactly what's happening around you.
01:27 You've got better visibility than any car I've ever had.
01:29 You can fit two people.
01:31 This has a Momo steering wheel.
01:33 This is actually used by race cars, the Motec Dash.
01:35 Four-point shoulder harness.
01:37 The pilots of commercial aircraft use these exact harnesses.
01:39 With a comfortable and easy to drive interior, what is it like to drive a car like this?
01:43 It's a lot of fun.
01:45 It's a lot of fun.
01:47 With a comfortable and easy to drive interior, what is it like to drive a car like this?
01:51 It handles really well.
01:53 We know it has a super low centre of gravity, being that it has a dry sump engine that's opposed.
01:59 So it's got a lower centre of gravity than just about any other car.
02:01 I've had it up to 120 miles an hour.
02:03 So the length is 102 inches, the same width of a semi-truck.
02:07 So it can park perpendicular to the kerb.
02:09 So it can park perpendicular to the kerb.
02:16 This is the chassis.
02:18 And this is the roll cage that is certified by FIA for a 200-mile-an-hour race car.
02:24 There's about four times more impact protection here than there is in a standard production car.
02:29 To me, this car is safer than any other car on the road.
02:32 Because it can avoid accidents better than any other car.
02:34 This has the same rollover threshold as a 911 Porsche.
02:37 It turns instantly, unlike a motorcycle, which has to counter-steer before it can turn to avoid a collision.
02:43 The Tango debuted in 2005.
02:45 And after actor George Clooney bought one, the car became a runaway success.
02:49 Due to the nature of the build, the company can only produce a certain amount.
02:55 It took ten employees about three years to get nine and a half cars built.
02:59 And this is number ten.
03:01 It's been quite a few more years.
03:04 But also it's a lot more complicated.
03:06 We've spent a couple of years just developing the new lithium pack for this one.
03:10 But there have been constant upgrades over the years,
03:13 just to get the lithium batteries and the management systems to handle them.
03:17 This is the car that we sold to a customer in Perth, Australia.
03:22 And it's in the process of assembly, but mostly it's waiting on completion of the battery pack.
03:30 The battery box is here.
03:31 The whole bottom of the car is battery.
03:34 There's 90 kilowatt hours of battery in there, which will give us about 300 miles of range.
03:39 With all the work needed to create these slender vehicles, the production costs can't be that cheap.
03:43 These cars have cost an average of $420,000 each to build.
03:48 And unsurprisingly, out on the road, this car gets a lot of attention.
03:52 Hi, sure, of course.
03:58 Thank you.
03:59 Yeah.
04:00 This is so cool that you got this done. I'm so impressed with you. That's amazing.
04:04 We get so many reactions from people watching it. It's amazing.
04:07 Sometimes we have two people, both the driver and a passenger, both photographing the car as we're going down the highway.
04:13 It grabs a lot of attention.
04:16 [Engine Revving]
04:19 [Music Fades Out]
04:22 [Silence]
