{"id":684,"date":"2010-03-05T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/example.org\/were--starting-a-new-weekly-series-here-called-five-question--friday-that-will-feature-solidworks-customers-reselle"},"modified":"2010-03-05T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T15:00:00","slug":"were-starting-a-new-weekly-series-here-called-five-question-friday-that-will-feature-solidworks-customers-reselle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2010\/03\/were-starting-a-new-weekly-series-here-called-five-question-friday-that-will-feature-solidworks-customers-reselle.html","title":{"rendered":"Five Questions Friday with Rick Woodbury of Commuter Cars Corp."},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re
\nstarting a new weekly series here called \u201cFive Question
\nFriday\u201d that will feature SolidWorks customers, resellers, employees, etc. all
\nanswering the same five questions. We’re hoping to give our
\nreaders a little more insight into the people who make up the global
\nSolidWorks community.
\nIf you\u2019d like to be featured, or nominate someone else, leave a comment with your suggestions. We’ll try to tackle as many as we can. So without further ado, here’s our first victim. I mean honoree.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/strong><\/p>\n

Name: Rick Woodbury<\/strong> <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Title: President and
\nCEO<\/strong> <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Company: Commuter
\nCars (www.commutercars.com<\/a>)  <\/strong><\/o:p><\/p>\n

Hometown: Spokane<\/st1:city>, WA<\/st1:state><\/st1:place><\/o:p><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

1) Why did you choose
\nto do the work you do?<\/strong>
<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In about 1982, I was stuck in traffic in Los Angeles<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and noticed only one person in
\neach car around me. I contemplated how many millions are stuck in my situation
\nevery day and just seem numb to it — a frustration without a solution. I
\nthought about what would be the solution. It was obvious that length of a
\nvehicle was much less important than width for increasing freeway lane capacity
\nin cars per hour. Making a car half as wide, or able to fit in a half lane with
\nadequate clearance would allow a doubling of lane capacity. Shortening a car
\nwould make a much smaller difference because most of the real estate used by a
\ncar is the space in front for braking reaction time and braking distance. Since
\nroughly 90 percent of all cars have one person in them why would people choose
\na wide car for most of their trips, given the choice?<\/p>\n

<\/o:p>It occurred to me, of course, that a narrow car would tip
\nover in cornering. Being a casual Porsche race driver at the time, I was quite
\naware of the relation of lateral G forces and center of mass. I’ve been an
\nadvocate of hydrogen fuel for cars since 1975 when I first read about it in a
\nBrazilian magazine. I knew that although an internal-combustion-engine car
\nwould be hard to ballast enough for stability, a hydrogen car using iron-titanium
\nhydride or a similar carrier for the hydrogen would make great ballast for
\nstabilizing a narrow car.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p>I stewed on this for nearly 20 years wondering when a car
\ncompany would figure this out. I remember speaking with Peter Schutz, and
\nHelmut Bott, Porsche’s president and chief engineer at the time about hydrogen.
\nThey said that it was a 20 year project, and that they could only afford to
\nwork on five-year projects at Porsche.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p>Almost exactly 20 year later I learned of the progress being
\nmade at Daimler-Benz, and their planned purchase of Ballard stock, a hydrogen
\nfuel cell company. Many things came together at that time that catalyzed my son
\nand me to build a prototype narrow car that ran on batteries just to prove our
\ntheory. We originally thought that batteries wouldn’t have enough range and
\nthat our work was to prepare for hydrogen power. We learned quickly though that
\nbatteries were more than sufficient for the average commute. In fact, because
\nthe Tango was not trying to be everything to everybody, only appealing to 90
\npercent of all car trips, that inexpensive lead-acid batteries would be
\nsufficient. As we built and developed our proof-of-concept vehicle, we found it
\nto be more and more valid. Little by little we got capital to advance the
\ndesign to the point where it is today.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

<\/o:p>
<\/strong><\/p>\n

2) What is your
\nproudest career moment?
<\/o:p><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many happy moments. It’s hard to put one in front
\nof another. They were all stepping stones on a very long path, but most by far,
\nlies ahead. That said, I\u2019d have to say that completing a garage-built prototype
\nwith my son that beat some Corvettes on the autocross track despite being only
\n39 inches wide would rank right up there.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

<\/o:p>
<\/strong><\/p>\n

3) What goal do you
\nhave that inspires you most?  <\/strong>
<\/o:p><\/p>\n

For the Tango to get a foothold so that the doubling of lane
\ncapacity can be achieved, it must have immediate advantages over a standard
\ncar. In California<\/st1:state>, Europe<\/st1:place>,
\nand the Orient, lane-splitting is allowed for motorcycles, some of which are
\nfive inches wider than the Tango. The Tango is actually five inches narrower than
\na Honda Gold Wing motorcycle from mirror to mirror. I’ve noted situations where
\ntraffic jams were so bad coming off of the San Francisco<\/st1:placename> Bay<\/st1:placetype>
\n Bridge<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> that the motorcycles
\nwere traveling in 20 seconds the distance that it took cars to travel 20
\nminutes — a 60 to 1 advantage. The Tango could have done the same.
<\/o:p><\/p>\n

So in philanthropy, one can give the golden egg, or give the
\ngoose that lays the golden egg. I believe that funding Commuter Cars is
\nlike the latter. It is Commuter Cars’ goal to put 150-million Tangos on
\nthe roads of the world within 30 years or hopefully as little as 15. I
\nbelieve that when the average commuter sees the benefit, enjoys the
\nfreedom and excitement of driving a Tango, they will naturally gravitate
\ntoward a tipping point just as the Model-T and the PC did, and people will
\nwonder how we ever got along without them.<\/o:p>150 million Tangos, possibly $3 trillion in sales, may sound
\nlike a lot, but it’s only about half of the single-occupant commuters in
\nthe world. In the U.S.<\/st1:country><\/st1:place>
\nalone, which is roughly one third of the world\u2019s automotive market, it would
\nhave the following effect. <\/p>\n

There would be a savings of $39 billion in the retail cost
\nof gasoline to consumers which would be replaced by $5.2-billion dollars
\nof electricity at retail based on $.10 a kilowatt-hour (kWh). It would
\nalso probably save most of the $17-billion in wasted gasoline due to
\ntraffic congestion. The electricity used may not all be clean, however, it
\ncould be, and naturally will be, as clean sources like solar and wind
\nbecome more commonplace and economically feasible. 
<\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n


<\/strong><\/p>\n

4) How has SolidWorks
\nmade a difference in your life?<\/strong>
<\/o:p><\/p>\n

SolidWorks allowed us to take our destiny into our own hands
\nand hire an engineer or two to work on our project in-house. Before we were spending
\nway too much, with too little control, with companies that used other CAD
\nsolutions. I was also able to learn SolidWorks to a small degree. It is very
\nuser friendly and affordable. We could never have afforded other solutions or
\nthe engineers that used them. It really made the redesign possible with our
\nextremely limited budget.<\/p>\n


<\/span><\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/o:p>5) What do you to for
\nfun, and what\u2019s your favorite food?
<\/o:p><\/strong><\/p>\n

I
\nrewrite the words to Taylor Swift songs so that I can play and sing them on my guitar. My favorite food is a Pizzeria Uno Pizza (Uno Bar and
\nGrill). I\u2019m nearly half way across the country for the nearest Uno\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\n

Thanks to Rick for taking the time to talk with us. If you’re interested in learning more about how Commuter Cars user SolidWorks, be sure to check out our case study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n