Small Business Stories - Commuter Cars Corporation Video

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Small Business Stories - Commuter Cars Corporation

Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on SBTV.com and joining me here at SEMA 2007 is Rick Woodbury. Rick is the owner of commuter cars. That is the name of your company right? Rick Woodbury: Yeah. Alex Fees: All right we’re at SEMA 2007 that’s Specialty Equipment Market Association on the floor of the Las Vegas convention center here on day number three. I believed it is we’re in? So tell me about commuter cars. We are discussing it’s a private when I came her. This sounds like a big deal not the least of which is that you have a huge star who owns with one of your products. Rick Woodbury: Right. Alex Fees: Who is that? Rick Woodbury: The star George Clooney here with our first customer. Alex Fees: Really? Rick Woodbury: And we’re building 10 more for customers who given us large down payments for them. Three of them are Google founder going to Google founders and— Alex Fees: So this is a single sitter car is that right? Rick Woodbury: Actually, its two people in tandem. Alex Fees: Okay one from the other. Rick Woodbury: Maybe six foot, six people in the car at the same time. Alex Fees: How wide is this car? Rick Woodbury: 39 inches. Alex Fees: Really? Rick Woodbury: Five inches narrow within a Goldwyn motorbike. Alex Fees: Really? Rick Woodbury: Yeah from rare to mare. So it links was a handling California and according to 39 police officers mostly CHP I’ve asked its anonymous vote that yes it can lanes flat legally. Motor cycles can do it for me. CHP website that they can lines legally as long as they do it safely. Alex Fees: Probably that’s alone and what about 25 miles per hour something like that? Rick Woodbury: They could do that but it also does 150 miles an hour. Alex Fees: 150 miles per hour. Rick Woodbury: From 0-16 per seconds. Alex Fees: Man, oh what kind of engine is this? Rick Woodbury: Oh it has two electric motors that uses at the same type of motor. A series round catching motor— Alex Fees: Okay hang on. Hang on—so electric motors, so it’s green in the booth? Rick Woodbury: Right it is green, pure electric not a hybrid that uses no gas whatsoever. Alex Fees: Wow. Rick Woodbury: And despite it incredible toward which is a 1000 foot pound toward basically double what that viper has. Its still has a very low cost per mile. About a 150 miles per gallon equivalent cost, if that opinion a half a mile to drive in California and still can or here in Las Vegas I believed its about 20 a miles or less because where 230 you totally be right. Alex Fees: So Rick how much does one of your commuter cars is cost? Rick Woodbury: Well that’s the catch. We are in very low-low production. We’re about $90,000.00 the parts in it so our base model the one that George Clooney bought it he paid a $109,000.00 for it and that’s what we are selling the rest of them for with at least batteries. However eight of our next 10 customers decided they want 200 miles ranger or close to it and they’re buying look in my own batteries for a $40,000.00 extra. Alex Fees: Well and still I mean that expensive I realized but that’s also the business model for new technology when something first comes on the market. Do you see a time happening when that could change? Rick Woodbury: I hope $10,000.00 cards the sooner the better that’s what we’re aiming for but— Alex Fees: What’s the key—mass production? Rick Woodbury: Yeah, it takes any car that you see on that street for $10,000.00 probably have at least one and a half billion dollar come into it before they got the price down. That’s so much it is for the tooling and the set up to get a 100,000 a year. Where you can advertise the cost out and get the cost down at low but I believe with about $15 million when you get the price down to 20,000 or so and with less maybe with $5 million will be able to get a down through under 40 or 50 someone in that range. So its one step at a time and I don’t want to give the company away so we just have to earn it at time. We’ll earn our way up there by just making a (Voice overlap) every car we sell Alex Fees: Right. Rick Woodbury: If we go faster with investment all the better. Alex Fees: Yeah, it sound it’s likes the anti SUV is that right. Rick Woodbury: Yeah I mean but it’s built stronger than the SUV and it sound to me and so I mean actually it has a full master row cage so— Alex Fees: Really? Rick Woodbury: I mean you can’t say mass car, you can even certified but it does have an FIA certification, which is the international certification for raise cars who got 200 miles an hour. Alex Fees: Well that was my next question. And a car of this size and its traveling a 150 miles per hour forget about the airbag you’re done but maybe not. Rick Woodbury: Maybe not since they have the same exact structure that to proved for 200 mile an hour for race car. It has a power point harness we use—because race car harness is a little bit conversion for getting it out and it is a commuter car in spite of the testing that they have. It’s a commuter car and you want to be able to get an out quickly. I want this be the car when you walk into your garage, you unthinkingly get into this car over any other car in the world that could going to the grocery, going to work and doing anything within its range, which is typically about 90% of all trips, which is single occupant. It’s a 100 making million workers in the US and 92 million drive single occupants with poor empty seats and they jam all the freeways in the country. Alex Fees: Well Rick where is this idea come from? Tell me about you background. You’re the president and inventor of this car, president of the company and vendor of the car, what’s your background? Rick Woodbury: Well, it’s very—I never made it through high school but I’ve always then very interested in learning. I just don’t learn well in a classroom environment. I learned if I have specific project to solve so I became an electrical engineer of 0455 and work for the north base and I started that company called Dharma Press which was a lot of electrical engineering were involved in that. I basically—you know got the idea when I was reading a Brazilian magazine back in 1975 about— Alex Fees: 1975— Rick Woodbury: 1975 is going man—I was into a hydrogen power at, that’s where I got interested in it because I heard that you can still hydrogen and nickel metal hydride. Patent not nickel metal hydride it was a titanium hydride but anyway maybe this thing were heavy so it’s about 1981 I was a sales manager of Beverly Hills Porsche at the time. Total changes of career a lot of times but—so—I saw around me in a traffic jam. Everybody was one person per car. Alex Fees: Right with the whole a lot of people in the world. Rick Woodbury: With four empty seats around them and I thought how much waste, how many doctors, attorney and people are at worth a lot of money are just sitting there jam up. How much money is that worth? I’ll turn out this statistics. The tax is $67 billion a year as wasted due to traffic congestion and in the US alone. So in any event this thought you know a narrow car will double the lane capacity how narrow would it have to be, I had really put it together but I’m pretty sure that we balance that it would work. So I thought all the features hydrogen and the ballast would be the hydride that will hold it and that would make a narrow car work. Just like a sailboat, you have a narrow car that would be stable. Alex Fees: What about like it shows like SEMA, have you been to SEMA we’re here at SEMA 2007? Rick Woodbury: It is now first time. Alex Fees: This is your first time. Rick Woodbury: And then in the LA I had show twice and then here in and we’re going to be in San Francisco out of show in a few weeks. Alex Fees: What kind of reaction do you get from some of the other vendors and in particular the major automobile manufacturers of the show like SEMA? Rick Woodbury: Well I haven’t really talk to major manufacturers here but I was in the EBS17 which is in electric vehicles and post human for back in 2000 and so the car and then thing was that the Japanese companies say they don’t pick ideas from the outside so they don’t have no interest. Their legal department would send me back a letter saying thanks but no thanks. Geisler was extremely excited in a one point and then they just—I never heard background so I don’t know what they’re doing towards so they put into their book of the ideas for future use maybe someday. And then GM got really excited about it and how the spring are prototype to the troy and they were making kind of an offer. They needed to meet the California air resources for mandate which might about 10% zero mission cars like 2003, that was the way the mandate was and they were really excited about it. I mean they were doing burn out since I have to shop with EB1 was built and it’s really excited about it. Alex Fees: That’s interesting. Rick Woodbury: I also had Bob Temple who is previously the chairman of the board of general motors drive the car. The first thing he wouldn’t drive but he said they’ll tip over nice and watch this video and they showed like goes around quarters as flat as it could be and he says please help me done and then he solve it and he was pretty excited about it. A year later I saw him in another show and he was very impressive with our progress and in that show there was on the cover of general show time magazine. It said its general motor can be use a tango to meet the kind of mandate. It was like that was headline and I showed it to him and I said it might get a little too. I don’t know the word cheeky when I try to get cross when I’m pushing my leg here and so then now they’re big boys I can handle it. But it wasn’t more than two months later and I got a letter from Larry Burns the VP of R&D for GM saying that they love the car and all of that but it wasn’t in their best interested. Alex Fees: What about—where can—is there a website or something where people can go to get more information about the car? Rick Woodbury: Yeah commutercars.com and actually if you just— Alex Fees: Hang on, what is it commutercars.com? Rick Woodbury: Commutercars.com, yes. Alex Fees: Okay go ahead. Rick Woodbury: And if you just Google the word tango this is one of the first tip. It’s a lot of time it’s a very first hit and after 150 years of that it’s amazing that its got not much suppose to be you know. Alex Fees: And now you’re benefiting from it. Rick Woodbury: Exactly. Alex Fees: You’ll take it. All right Rick Woodbury, thank you very much sir. Again he is Rick Woodbury owner of commuter cars. Is your car have a name? Rick Woodbury: Yeah, the Tango. Alex Fees: It’s Tango all right that is the name of the car. I’m Alex Fees sorry— Rick Woodbury: Tango takes two. Alex Fees: I’ve been thinking about this, from marketing. You’re watching sbtv.com.

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Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on SBTV.com and joining me here at SEMA 2007 is Rick Woodbury. Rick is the owner of commuter cars. That is the name of your company right?

Rick Woodbury: Yeah.

Alex Fees: All right we’re at SEMA 2007 that’s Specialty Equipment Market Association on the floor of the Las Vegas convention center here on day number three. I believed it is we’re in? So tell me about commuter cars. We are discussing it’s a private when I came her. This sounds like a big deal not the least of which is that you have a huge star who owns with one of your products.

Rick Woodbury: Right.

Alex Fees: Who is that?

Rick Woodbury: The star George Clooney here with our first customer.

Alex Fees: Really?

Rick Woodbury: And we’re building 10 more for customers who given us large down payments for them. Three of them are Google founder going to Google founders and—

Alex Fees: So this is a single sitter car is that right?

Rick Woodbury: Actually, its two people in tandem.

Alex Fees: Okay one from the other.

Rick Woodbury: Maybe six foot, six people in the car at the same time.

Alex Fees: How wide is this car?

Rick Woodbury: 39 inches.

Alex Fees: Really?

Rick Woodbury: Five inches narrow within a Goldwyn motorbike.

Alex Fees: Really?

Rick Woodbury: Yeah from rare to mare. So it links was a handling California and according to 39 police officers mostly CHP I’ve asked its anonymous vote that yes it can lanes flat legally. Motor cycles can do it for me. CHP website that they can lines legally as long as they do it safely.

Alex Fees: Probably that’s alone and what about 25 miles per hour something like that?

Rick Woodbury: They could do that but it also does 150 miles an hour.

Alex Fees: 150 miles per hour.

Rick Woodbury: From 0-16 per seconds.

Alex Fees: Man, oh what kind of engine is this?

Rick Woodbury: Oh it has two electric motors that uses at the same type of motor. A series round catching motor—

Alex Fees: Okay hang on. Hang on—so electric motors, so it’s green in the booth?

Rick Woodbury: Right it is green, pure electric not a hybrid that uses no gas whatsoever.

Alex Fees: Wow.

Rick Woodbury: And despite it incredible toward which is a 1000 foot pound toward basically double what that viper has. Its still has a very low cost per mile. About a 150 miles per gallon equivalent cost, if that opinion a half a mile to drive in California and still can or here in Las Vegas I believed its about 20 a miles or less because where 230 you totally be right.

Alex Fees: So Rick how much does one of your commuter cars is cost?

Rick Woodbury: Well that’s the catch. We are in very low-low production. We’re about $90,000.00 the parts in it so our base model the one that George Clooney bought it he paid a $109,000.00 for it and that’s what we are selling the rest of them for with at least batteries. However eight of our next 10 customers decided they want 200 miles ranger or close to it and they’re buying look in my own batteries for a $40,000.00 extra.

Alex Fees: Well and still I mean that expensive I realized but that’s also the business model for new technology when something first comes on the market. Do you see a time happening when that could change?

Rick Woodbury: I hope $10,000.00 cards the sooner the better that’s what we’re aiming for but—

Alex Fees: What’s the key—mass production?

Rick Woodbury: Yeah, it takes any car that you see on that street for $10,000.00 probably have at least one and a half billion dollar come into it before they got the price down. That’s so much it is for the tooling and the set up to get a 100,000 a year. Where you can advertise the cost out and get the cost down at low but I believe with about $15 million when you get the price down to 20,000 or so and with less maybe with $5 million will be able to get a down through under 40 or 50 someone in that range. So its one step at a time and I don’t want to give the company away so we just have to earn it at time. We’ll earn our way up there by just making a (Voice overlap) every car we sell

Alex Fees: Right.

Rick Woodbury: If we go faster with investment all the better.

Alex Fees: Yeah, it sound it’s likes the anti SUV is that right.

Rick Woodbury: Yeah I mean but it’s built stronger than the SUV and it sound to me and so I mean actually it has a full master row cage so—

Alex Fees: Really?

Rick Woodbury: I mean you can’t say mass car, you can even certified but it does have an FIA certification, which is the international certification for raise cars who got 200 miles an hour.

Alex Fees: Well that was my next question. And a car of this size and its traveling a 150 miles per hour forget about the airbag you’re done but maybe not.

Rick Woodbury: Maybe not since they have the same exact structure that to proved for 200 mile an hour for race car. It has a power point harness we use—because race car harness is a little bit conversion for getting it out and it is a commuter car in spite of the testing that they have. It’s a commuter car and you want to be able to get an out quickly. I want this be the car when you walk into your garage, you unthinkingly get into this car over any other car in the world that could going to the grocery, going to work and doing anything within its range, which is typically about 90% of all trips, which is single occupant.

It’s a 100 making million workers in the US and 92 million drive single occupants with poor empty seats and they jam all the freeways in the country.

Alex Fees: Well Rick where is this idea come from? Tell me about you background. You’re the president and inventor of this car, president of the company and vendor of the car, what’s your background?

Rick Woodbury: Well, it’s very—I never made it through high school but I’ve always then very interested in learning. I just don’t learn well in a classroom environment. I learned if I have specific project to solve so I became an electrical engineer of 0455 and work for the north base and I started that company called Dharma Press which was a lot of electrical engineering were involved in that. I basically—you know got the idea when I was reading a Brazilian magazine back in 1975 about—

Alex Fees: 1975—

Rick Woodbury: 1975 is going man—I was into a hydrogen power at, that’s where I got interested in it because I heard that you can still hydrogen and nickel metal hydride. Patent not nickel metal hydride it was a titanium hydride but anyway maybe this thing were heavy so it’s about 1981 I was a sales manager of Beverly Hills Porsche at the time. Total changes of career a lot of times but—so—I saw around me in a traffic jam. Everybody was one person per car.

Alex Fees: Right with the whole a lot of people in the world.

Rick Woodbury: With four empty seats around them and I thought how much waste, how many doctors, attorney and people are at worth a lot of money are just sitting there jam up. How much money is that worth? I’ll turn out this statistics. The tax is $67 billion a year as wasted due to traffic congestion and in the US alone. So in any event this thought you know a narrow car will double the lane capacity how narrow would it have to be, I had really put it together but I’m pretty sure that we balance that it would work.

So I thought all the features hydrogen and the ballast would be the hydride that will hold it and that would make a narrow car work. Just like a sailboat, you have a narrow car that would be stable.

Alex Fees: What about like it shows like SEMA, have you been to SEMA we’re here at SEMA 2007?

Rick Woodbury: It is now first time.

Alex Fees: This is your first time.

Rick Woodbury: And then in the LA I had show twice and then here in and we’re going to be in San Francisco out of show in a few weeks.

Alex Fees: What kind of reaction do you get from some of the other vendors and in particular the major automobile manufacturers of the show like SEMA?

Rick Woodbury: Well I haven’t really talk to major manufacturers here but I was in the EBS17 which is in electric vehicles and post human for back in 2000 and so the car and then thing was that the Japanese companies say they don’t pick ideas from the outside so they don’t have no interest. Their legal department would send me back a letter saying thanks but no thanks. Geisler was extremely excited in a one point and then they just—I never heard background so I don’t know what they’re doing towards so they put into their book of the ideas for future use maybe someday.

And then GM got really excited about it and how the spring are prototype to the troy and they were making kind of an offer. They needed to meet the California air resources for mandate which might about 10% zero mission cars like 2003, that was the way the mandate was and they were really excited about it. I mean they were doing burn out since I have to shop with EB1 was built and it’s really excited about it.

Alex Fees: That’s interesting.

Rick Woodbury: I also had Bob Temple who is previously the chairman of the board of general motors drive the car. The first thing he wouldn’t drive but he said they’ll tip over nice and watch this video and they showed like goes around quarters as flat as it could be and he says please help me done and then he solve it and he was pretty excited about it. A year later I saw him in another show and he was very impressive with our progress and in that show there was on the cover of general show time magazine. It said its general motor can be use a tango to meet the kind of mandate. It was like that was headline and I showed it to him and I said it might get a little too. I don’t know the word cheeky when I try to get cross when I’m pushing my leg here and so then now they’re big boys I can handle it. But it wasn’t more than two months later and I got a letter from Larry Burns the VP of R&D for GM saying that they love the car and all of that but it wasn’t in their best interested.

Alex Fees: What about—where can—is there a website or something where people can go to get more information about the car?

Rick Woodbury: Yeah commutercars.com and actually if you just—

Alex Fees: Hang on, what is it commutercars.com?

Rick Woodbury: Commutercars.com, yes.

Alex Fees: Okay go ahead.

Rick Woodbury: And if you just Google the word tango this is one of the first tip. It’s a lot of time it’s a very first hit and after 150 years of that it’s amazing that its got not much suppose to be you know.

Alex Fees: And now you’re benefiting from it.

Rick Woodbury: Exactly.

Alex Fees: You’ll take it. All right Rick Woodbury, thank you very much sir. Again he is Rick Woodbury owner of commuter cars. Is your car have a name?

Rick Woodbury: Yeah, the Tango.

Alex Fees: It’s Tango all right that is the name of the car. I’m Alex Fees sorry—

Rick Woodbury: Tango takes two.

Alex Fees: I’ve been thinking about this, from marketing. You’re watching sbtv.com.

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