Rick Woodbury and his son created the Tango, a two-seater electric car that’s about 3-feet-wide.
More than ten years after selling a car to George Clooney, there hasn’t been much word on how the cars are progressing.
Woodbury said finding funding for the cars is one of the biggest obstacles he’s facing. He’s only made 12 of the electric cars.
“If you average the cost of five million dollars spent over 20 years, it costs $420,000 each to build these cars,” he said.
He’s been working with private customers and said his main goal is to get larger companies interested in his product.
“Part of raising money is to get companies convinced that we have a market,” he said.
There also has to be enough of the cars on the roads before he can perform an accurate analysis on how many people would be willing to purchase them.
Even with sufficient funding, Woodbury can’t start mass-producing the cars until laws are favorable to them. For example, in Spokane it is illegal to park perpendicularly in a parallel parking spot, even though Woodbury said about four Tango’s can fit in one spot.
Although the Tango was designed so that more than one vehicle can fit in a lane, most states haven’t legalized lane splitting. Woodbury has been working with lawmakers to change legislation around the country.
“A lot of my work goes into kind of lobbying or trying to get those bills passed,” he said.
He has also been working on some technical upgrades, like increasing how far a Tango can go before its battery is empty. He’s developed customized battery packs based off of a design from Tesla vehicles.
“It’s taken me the last two years to develop a battery pack that would go 300 miles. I just never realized it would be as difficult as it is,” he said.
But seeing millions of Tangos on busy roads all across the United States is something he’s determined to accomplish.
“It doesn’t scare me. It just seems like a logical thing,” he said. “I mean, you never know who’s gonna change the world. But, anyway, this is my attempt.”