Video: Tango Google Talk
This Google Talk, all about the Tango electric car, starts out with a bold statement. If Tango were cheaper, it would have a market of 150,000,000. The 24-minute talk was made in July by Rick Woodbury, the Tango creator. The description at the page says "before there was the Wrightspeed X-1, there was the Tesla prototype. Before the Tesla, there was the Tango." It starts off with the Tango driven inside and video of it driving on streets.
Rick describes one of the more appealing aspects of the car; "Lane splitting" which Rick says is legal for bikes. As he shows in slides, the car could literally drive through traffic jams like bikes right in between other cars, parked waiting for traffic to move. Safety came up a lot. There was a question from someone just in an accident with an SUV where people died.
Rick defended the safety of his car by saying it has a race car frame. His car is crash tested every weekend at the race track where those drivers almost always walk away. The audience laughed at that one. The center of gravity of the car is very low and there is even a bar right at the level of the SUV that Rick literally points out. Rick says safety concerns is an issue with small cars and he has to show Tango is not only equal but much safer than regular cars.
It's not quite a car just yet. Rick talks about selling it as a kit car. He has gone to several billionaires looking for funding but it costs $50 M for the required crash tests to get you into the car business. Rick says it feels like a law suit thing to him because those cars are not really safer. He says crumble zones is just advertising. Costs are $85,000. He is trying to sell them for $108,000. Someone asked if there would be a convertible option to laughs and Rick seemed open to the idea. All in all, a very interesting talk.
[Source: Youtube]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joseph 3:31PM (8/19/2007)
Call me strange, but I think the car is beautiful in its own quirky, yet elegant, way.
If they made it a little (by say, 10 inches?) a lot more possibilities would open up for them. They could probably fit in another passenger, which is a HUGE plus, the car would probably handle a little better, and it might be safer.
As of now, the concept is just a little too radical for the public. Electric cars need to be designed to have very wide appeal if we ever want it to be accpeted in the automotive world. I know, I know, it does 0-60 in 4 seconds which is totally awesome, but the looks will drive most people away unfortunately.
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ug 3:27AM (8/19/2007)
I understand the batteries help, but I can't get over the impression that it has a ludicrously high center of gravity and will turn over in a headwind or an abrupt turn. Heck, small SUVs are bad enough in that regard. It's basically a motorcycle with 4 wheels that can't lean, and that can't mean good handling characteristics.
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Lucien Takar 1:24AM (8/20/2007)
@ ug
That might be true except at the very end of the clip he states the center of gravity is just over 12 inches off the ground due to the weight of the lead-acid batteries.
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mark 7:20AM (8/19/2007)
I'm not so sure either. I'd like to know how much weight is above the top of the wheels. It looks like all the batteries are below this level. It might be only 100kg's above the top of the wheel including the driver. If there's 500kgs below, it'd handle like a go-kart. If it's not a ratio like that I'd be more worried. Either way, it's lots safer than my pushbike!
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Lascelles 7:38AM (8/19/2007)
Center of gravity is the very last question. Jump to the last minute in the video. He says it's significantly lower than a normal car. Just 12 inches off the ground. All the weight is on the floor. You would have to have the car at some very low angle, only implied by his hand, before it would tip. The audience laughed.
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rgseidl 9:42AM (8/19/2007)
This concept strikes me as trying to do four very difficult things all at once:
a) start a car company from scratch
b) develop a market for narrow tandem concepts
c) develop a market for BEVs
d) achieve all this in the US
This implies high investment risk. Bringing down cost is an absolute prerequisite for achieving the high sales volume needed to justify that risk. That means creating derivatives featuring a four-stroke ICE drivetrain originally designed for a mid-range motorcycle and adapted to meet LDV emissions. Example: BRP-Rotax 804 as used in the BMW F800 series. As a step up, a regular parallel hybrid setup might make sense; what would be classified as a mild hybrid in a regular car would behave like a full hybrid in a tandem seater.
However, with many fewer batteries in the floor, the vehicle height would have to be sharply reduced to avoid rollovers (cp. VW 1L, Volvo Tandem concepts). This improves the aerodynamics and increases the perception of speed. It also makes getting in and out more difficult, reduces driver insight into the traffic situation and aggravates the crash incompatibility problem with SUVs.
The alternative is a trike with a hydraulic leaning mechanism (cp. Carver One, CLEVER concept). These are great fun to drive on the open road, but they are expensive. It might also be hard to convince authorities to let them split lanes simply because they *can* lean even if actually don't at low speeds.
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Tim 11:17AM (8/19/2007)
The concept is BRILLIANT and would solve MANY problems! However, it is so far away from established norms that most people will have a VERY hard time accepting it. The time taken to watch the entire presentation was a good investment.
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Chris M 3:53PM (8/19/2007)
The heavy batteries is placed as low as possible to lower the center of gravity and make it stable. However, it would be possible to make it a few inches wider yet still retain the lane splitting abilities.
I think it would be kinda neat to combine aspects of the Tango with the tilting ability of the Venture/Carver and the front wheel arrangement of the Piaggio MP3...
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NT 5:01PM (8/20/2007)
The most important lesson to take away from this is the consequences of government regulations that are intended to serve the public, but result in stifling innovation and erecting massive barriers to entry into the auto market. The same problem afflicts countless markets in the US. A car with a roll cage probably is a safer design than crumple zones but nobody can start up a new auto manufacturing company to prove it. With all the auto magazines, JD Power, Consumer Reports, and media in the US, we really do not need a massive government bureaucracy forcing ever more expensive and complex safety regulations upon the industry. They served a very important purpose in the past, but today consumers are keenly aware of safety and are willing to pay for it. Entire car company's marketing efforts are based upon safety. Just look at Volvo, and more recently Honda's marketing campaign.
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Greens 12:13PM (10/15/2007)
A heavier car isn't going to decelerate as much as the lighter car in a collision because the heavier vehicle is going to push the lighter vehicle in the direction it's going. The occupants of the lighter vehicle, even if they're in a very rigid cage, are going to be subjected to greater forces. In a headon they might find themselves going from 50 mph in one direction to a few mph in the exact opposite direction. The result is that they will need more shock absorbing material for when they contact the inside of their vehicle. Seat belts and airbags will help, but it may take more. On race tracks all the vehicles are the the same size. On highways there are tremendous weight variations. The heavier vehicles will always be safer unless they have very weak cages.
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