Ready to Tango?

It has a 4 inch ground clearance. That plus it's short length means it would probably get stuck on a speed bump. And with such tiny wheels, I'm not sure I would risk Pennsylvania pot holes.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stuartinho @ Aug 22 2006, 09:12 AM) [snapback]307573[/snapback]</div>

Corners better than most exotic sports cars. Does better on the skid pad than a modern factory Porsche.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(M. Knight @ Aug 22 2006, 11:09 AM) [snapback]307651[/snapback]</div>

Odd how a picture can seem that way. When actually sitting in it, you feel amazingly secure and "safe." The damn thing is safer in a side collision than any production car on the road today. It is built with a full cage like a race car and has a four or five-point harness. Huge stiffening bars through each door. When you are in it, you don't feel all tight and claustrophobic. You feel, "Let's go!" There is actually plenty of hip/shoulder/let room. You'd be surprised.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bob Allen @ Aug 22 2006, 01:16 PM) [snapback]307738[/snapback]</div>

Bob... have you seen what happens to a gasoline car when the gasoline catches on fire? Do you still hesitate to drive one???? Seriously, folks love to worry about the new and different, and seem blind to the safety issues that we've become comfortable with. Modern Li-ion batteries are far safer than gasoline... oh... and these cars only use lead-acid batteries... for ballast.

Driving them, and helping to demonstrate a market.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Aug 22 2006, 09:52 AM) [snapback]307594[/snapback]</div>

Small, fast, easy to park, WAY more efficient than a plug-in hybrid, no oil or tuneups, perfect for commuting, much cheaper than a plug-in hybrid in mass production. And don't discount the goofy factor!

 

:angry: What a joke!

They make a car that can do 0-60mph in 4 seconds, has a top speed of 150mph, costs 85,000$ but has only a range of 60 miles! There is no serious market for this piece of nonsense, except a few people with way to much money that want something their rival-super-rich don't have yet. A toy for super rich. As a solution to environmental problems, it has zero value.

This stuff isn't doing any good to give electric cars street credibility (pun). What is needed is a prius-like model: something comfortable, with sufficient space, with moderate but acceptable performance (0-60mph in 9 seconds is more than enough), a reasonable price, and a much larger range. Just like with hybrids, only such a car will bring a breakthrough. Cars like this Tango makes electric cars look like a silly joke.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Aug 25 2006, 06:52 AM) [snapback]309190[/snapback]</div>

I can only attribute this to your enthousiasm about electric cars. But you don't really mean it, do you?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bob Allen @ Aug 22 2006, 03:16 PM) [snapback]307738[/snapback]</div>

Would you also hesitate to ride a gasoline-powered car because a few Pintos blew up?

Unfortunately, any source of stored energy is going to have dangers, which have to be mitigated by engineering designs. The vast majority of batteries don't explode, just like the vast majority of gas tanks don't.

 

Ok just my opinion if im going to drive something that supposedly will out perform a veyron for 0.5% the cost. I am going to want it to look cool, not just perform like a cool car. I don’t car how fast it goes and how well it corners if I am lmao at the look of the car I don’t want it.

Now if it is a economy car cruising down the road its not all that funny, but if I pulled up to a Mustang 5.0 supercharged and all that. I think that thing would be laughed at severely no mater how badly it beat them.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Aug 27 2006, 03:39 AM) [snapback]310051[/snapback]</div>

Any electric car can have an unlimited daily range.

You just need to hire one of these for your longer trips:

http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/DSC00465.JPG

http://www.acpropulsion.com/Products/Range...ng_trailers.htm

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(clett @ Aug 28 2006, 11:19 AM) [snapback]310465[/snapback]</div>

Now that makes the joke complete
So long for your sportscar behaviour, your excellent parking capabilities, and your environment-friendlyness if you have to carry one of those lorries to drive further than 60 miles.

The combo Tango + such a trailer makes a serious chance to be the most idiotic hevicle to be seen in. It just screams "look what's the problem with my electric vehicle". Good luck selling that to the masses.

 

I must say that this vehicle would be perfect for my commute and as our family's 2nd car. It's all electric and have a range of 60 miles. I only need <40 to/from work. The price, if they can reach it, puts it in range with an expensive motorcycle.

I could see my family have this as our 2nd car and the Prius as our 1st. I would commute in this "thing" and run all errands in our main car.

Alternativley, I would trade the Prius for a hybrid mini-van or similar (once we have kids or more dogs).

It seems that many families would be in a similar position where they need one large car to take the whole family but a 2nd car for daily commute (that is not all that long). As a matter of fact I think that is the norm. So this seems like a viable option to me.

Sure, I would prefer an all electric RAV IV, Scion Xa or EV1 (are you listening GM?), but neither is readily available (yet) and will cost at least twice as much if not more, and both are larger then our 2nd car needs to be.

I'll keep my eye on this one and if they can hit the market first they might be a contender. Unfortunatley all of these seem to be "on the horizion" and available "next year". They said the same thing last year.

I want to go all EV for our 2nd car, and keep a hybrid as our "main" car. I think that is the most viable solution until plug-in quick charge stations get more common.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SomervillePrius @ Aug 28 2006, 05:04 PM) [snapback]310532[/snapback]</div>

The price is 85,000$. Are you really willing to pay that much for a commuter car? Plus the insurance costs? I think this puts you in a very small minority.

There is nothing wrong with the car's form factor. And, for a real commuter car, 60 miles range could potentially fit many people. But the price is destroying any promise this car has. For that price, the vast majority of people would at least want something that can fully replace a traditional car and then some extra.

Yes, of course it will be sold, perhaps more than they can build. To a few super-rich who get bored with their ferraris. Not exactly a significant step in the evolution of cars.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Aug 28 2006, 11:31 AM) [snapback]310545[/snapback]</div>

It's the first-adopters that bring down the price of new technologies for everyone - nobody is suggesting an $85k Tango or $100k Tesla is priced right or ready for the masses yet.

When the CD-player was introduced in 1982 it cost $1000 vs maybe $10 for a cassette player. Do you still listen to cassettes? CD-players are cheap and widespread today only because a small number of wealthy people started buying them in the early days when prices were too much for the masses.

Vehicles like these, at prices like these, are a very necessary step in the introduction of the electric car.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Aug 28 2006, 11:31 AM) [snapback]310545[/snapback]</div>

I'm not exactly a fan of this "car", but it should pointed out that anything as complex as a car that is not being massed produced is going to be very expensive. So far, they've built 3 of the T600s, pretty much by hand I would believe, and therefore they are quite expensive.

However, if you actually read the article, you might notice that they're trying to get a $50 million investment so that they can actually create real manufacturing facilities and produce two more basic models for $18,700, and $39,900.

Don't you think people might just pay $18,700 for a commuter car, particularly in Los Angeles, where the article implies that lane-splitting with it would be legal, and therefore allow it to bypass traffic by driving between the cars?

 

If the Tango and Tesla are too expensive, here's another car due out next year, a Chinese import:

http://www.milesautomotive.com/products_xs200.html

It gets 200 miles/charge, does 80mph, costs $28500.

I hope it's for real. Not that I want to be driving Chinese cars, I just want a practical EV. He has a couple other low-speed Chinese EVs on that site, too.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(clett @ Aug 28 2006, 05:58 PM) [snapback]310560[/snapback]</div>

I definetely agree with that. But my point is that this car has the wrong specs. 0-60mph in 4 seconds, 150mph top speed and yet only 60 miles range is totally useless for a commuter car. It's just the wrong type of product.

If they would make the same thing with 0-6mph in 9 seconds, top speed of 100mph and a range of 150 miles for half the price, that would be something.

This car targets at a niche market of super-rich, and that's why I call it insignificant in the evolution of cars. Everybody can build that car for this price, there is no challenge at all involved in that. Building an EV is by no means rocket science. The real challenge is to build a usable EV in an economical way.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Aug 27 2006, 12:39 AM) [snapback]310051[/snapback]</div>

Your certainty of that which you know nothing about is startling. While I understand your burning desire to be negative on this subject, it does wear thin quickly when you've got no experience or knowledge to back it up.

I'm completely serious. It has nothing to do with the car being electric. It has everything to do with it being designed properly. It is built like a race car, not like a typical passenger vehicle that is designed to meet a relatively low safety threshold. There's really no reason to have an argument about any of this stuff unless you want to do a modicum of research, or are prepared to open your mind just a wee bit.

 

Some great points about early adopters and hand-built protos. Well done (Clett and Marlin recently!)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Aug 28 2006, 10:10 AM) [snapback]310600[/snapback]</div>

There is NOTHING you've said here that makes the car even poor (much less useless) as a commuter. You don't have to use the acceleration or the top speed during your commute. Just comes along for the ride, and gives the rich early adopters something to play with for their relatively large investment. That a car with that kind of performance CAN be such an amazingly efficient commuter is something that no other vehicle can claim.

150 miles of range would be a huge waste of money. Not that hard to do, but why pay an extra chunk of cash for the 1%'ers when the other 99% of the commutes are under 60 miles? You can easily lower the top speed and acceleration if that makes you happy. Can be done electronically with the throw of the switch. This isn't a long-distance, large capacity family car. It is strictly a commute vehicle. Think of it as a safe motorcycle with 4x the efficiency, and similar performance.

No. Only these first ones are built at the high end to attract the money. The "market" will be made for the sub $20k vehicles. That is the goal... not to sell a bunch of $85k cars. You can't easily start a small auto business with a large-volume, low-margin car. The little guys can't lose money for the first ten or twenty years of business and hope to survive.

Yay! You're getting it! Of course you seem to think it is somehow easy to design and implement a ground-up vehicle of ANY type on a shoe-string budget. If you had unlimited funds, then yes, it would be very easy to build an $85k car. The challenge that Rick has taken on for himself is to get to a financial position where he CAN build an econimical vehicle for the masses. He just can't start that way. Beating him up for the buisiness he's trying to build isn't the sort of support he needs, I'd imagine. Truth be known, the first one of these (Now Clooney's) cost them over $200k to build. $85k is a bargain for what was put into it. In a perfect world, this car could be built to sell for $30k. This isn't a perfect world.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Aug 28 2006, 12:10 PM) [snapback]310600[/snapback]</div>

Would you agree that the Tesla is significant? Sporty design, better range, still very good performance, same price range, but I think people would be more willing to be seen in it because it looks like it should cost money.

Competition is good, and for a long time there hasn't been any real competition in highway-speed street legal electric cars. (Still isn't really, they're all in pre-production right now). The problem is getting the money to pay for the safety features, collision tests, and that end of things. Building a one-off electric vehicle is no problem as you say, but building one you can sell with NSFTA approval (is that the right acronym? It doesn't seem right - the feds anyway) is a different matter altogether. Until you build up a mass-production system, the costs are extremely high.

When a used EV RAV4 sells for $50,000, I think there is a market for vehicles like this in the states, despite your reservations.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Aug 22 2006, 09:52 AM) [snapback]307594[/snapback]</div>

John -

Quite true. And... respectfully... the Tango has many practical advantages over any sort of hybrid. Not to mention that plug-in hybrids are about as available as... Tangos.

For some, the fact that the Tango is faster, safer and better-handling than a Prius would be enough to tip the scales. For others, a vehicle that requires no oil, tuneups or gasoline would tip the scales. And obviously there are those of us who need a car that can also tote the family around. The point is, we should have a choice of vehicles. And today we don't. This would offerer up a great choice for those who already own a gasoline car that does nothing but commute. That's only several hundred million people in the the US (probably CA alone). Turns out that there is no one vehicle that is the perfect, practical choice for everybody.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Aug 29 2006, 12:31 AM) [snapback]310771[/snapback]</div>

I DON'T have any desire to be negative on this subject. I only have a desire to be realistic. And there is no need to get personal. I say that this car has zero value for solving environmental problems for one single reason: the price. A price of 85,000$ restricts it to a very small niche. What is the positive impact on the environment of a zero emission car if only 0.01% of the market is going to buy it? Yes: zero. I challenge you to deny this. IF they can lower the price to a reasonable level, then I will think different about it. If they offer a similar car for 25,000$, I would pre-order one right now, with a full deposit if necessary.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Aug 29 2006, 12:31 AM) [snapback]310771[/snapback]</div>

Yes I did some research, and yes I knew it has a race-car-like steel cage. Still, by no means does this make this car the safest production vehicle for side impacts. Why? Because the road is not a racing circuit. Racing circuits typically don't have 18-wheelers. And you don't wear a helmet if you drive a car on the street. Safety in impacts has a lot to do with acceleration, more precisely the control of them. An undeformable cage does nothing to protect your head from excessive acceleration. To control acceleration, you need empty space, in order to allow for deformation. And we arn't even talking about another huge safety factor in real life circumstances: weight. You can't change the laws of physics. Don't believe everything they claim. Yes, this car perhaps will be remarkably safe for its form factor, and more than safe enough. But claiming that it is better in side impacts than any production vehicle is a position you simply can't hold.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Aug 29 2006, 12:43 AM) [snapback]310776[/snapback]</div>

The price, man, the price! The people who need it as a commuter car will never buy it because it's too expensive for them. And the people who are willing to buy it don't typically commute. Ergo: this is not a commuter car. If they can sell this for 20.000$, then it would be a perfect commuter car, and people would of course be more than happy to enjoy its stellar performance if it would be possible to have this for that price.
But my point is that it's wrong to design a "commuter car" with such performance, with a racing steel cage and all that stuff, if the resulting price is 85.000$. This is totally meaningless.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Aug 29 2006, 12:43 AM) [snapback]310776[/snapback]</div>

NO. If you say this, you don't understand the consumer psychology. You need to have a range as large as possible, because this is going to be the biggest concern for potential mainstream buyers. Having much more range than they will drive during a single day will give them sufficient peace of mind to be happy with that limitation. It's again that "just in case" reasoning. For most people, even 20,000$ is a major investment, and they want to have peace of mind for that price. It would be even better if it had 4 seats for that price. You know, maybe one day, you want to use this car to bring the kids to school.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Aug 29 2006, 12:43 AM) [snapback]310776[/snapback]</div>

Sub 20.000$ would be very good. But I believe that this will come from some major manufacturer, because they have the leverage to do this (Toyota where are you?) For the moment, this Tango is just a fun project for a few individuals. Nothing more.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Aug 29 2006, 12:43 AM) [snapback]310776[/snapback]</div>

From a technology perspective, an EV with lead-acid batteries is a non-issue. But building it from zero as a new design is the wrong approach. To build it economically, one should start from an existing car design, so that you don't have all the other design and assembly costs. Preferably start from a design that has already proven its popularity and coolness. For example, take a BMW Mini, and convert this to an EV. Even if you have to give up the second row of seats but still have a decent range, you would have an extremely cool car for a reasonable price. THAT is something quite some people would be willing to buy.

The main challenge with EV's is not technology. We don't need any proof of concept anymore. The main challenge is economy and marketing. Marketing and product positioning, so that you can make a car that appeals to a large number of people. That includes everything necessary to make the man or woman in-the-street feel confident that their big investment is not waisted money, that they will have a car in return that they can use like they used their conventional cars.

From an economical perspective, the Tango project is nonsense. From a marketing perspective, it targets at a very small niche market. From a technological perspective, it does not seem to include any real new innovations. By no means will this enforce a breakthrough in EV's.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Aug 29 2006, 12:49 AM) [snapback]310778[/snapback]</div>

It looks more meaningfull indeed, but I don't know the details.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Aug 29 2006, 12:49 AM) [snapback]310778[/snapback]</div>

That's why I think that, having a small company building an EV from zero is the wrong approach. It makes more sense to take an existing conventional design and equip it as an EV. The design might not be that optimal, but it would be much more ecomical.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Aug 29 2006, 12:49 AM) [snapback]310778[/snapback]</div>

Of course there is a market. There is a market for ferraris, and they can't produce them quickly enough. But the big promise of EV is that they help with envirnomental and natural reserves problems. To have any significance in this respect, you need to have a product that appeals to a substantial fraction the consumers. Therefore, my norms for a "market" for EV's are rather high. Otherways, they don't fullfill their promise.

 

Sorry about the personal thing. I try not to do it... and often fail.

I can and I do. In every test they've performed (obviously this can never be exhuastive, and therefore can never be 100% proven) side-impact incursion is substantially less than in any other vehicle. Most people will agree that incursion is the biggest killer in a side-impact. Once your head meets the bumper or hood of the SUV that ran over you, game over. You can't tell by looking at a car how it will perform in a crash, can you?

[/quote]If they offer a similar car for 25,000$, I would pre-order one right now, with a full deposit if necessary.[/quote]
Well, I've put my money where my mouth is, and they have my deposit for the sub $20k car. Yes, they're taking desposits now, so feel free to sign up. If they don't get the deposits, they don't build the affordable cars. Show them you're serious, and put your deposit down. It is held in an escrow account under your name, so the money never really leaves your hands. No risk except for the small loss of interest on the deposit.