Fastest electric car is designed 10 times faster on SolidWorks

The vehicle, driven by none other than George Clooney (who bought the first one) when staying in California, “travels two abreast with ease, safely switches lanes through impossible gaps, blithely glides through gridlocked traffic, and, at 39 inches wide, can park four to a space.” US-based Commuter Cars had outsourced the initial Tango design to an engineering firm that used a mix of CAD and handed over a set of files that, while well-engineered, “were a disorganised mess,” according to president Rick Woodbury. “A sheet metal contractor told us to get SolidWorks software and straighten out our files, so we did,” he says. “We’re now in complete control of the car from the ground up, and we’re using SolidWorks to refine the design every day.” Commuter Cars purchased SolidWorks COSMOSWorks design analysis software to help develop and test its designs and ensure they are sleek, efficient, and strong. Woodbury and his mechanical engineer used SolidWorks to converge scattered part files in smoothly operating assemblies and to optimise Tango systems like the high-performance suspension, NASCAR-grade roll cage, and stabilising ballast. Commuter Cars’ mechanical engineer David Mounce says SolidWorks’ 2D functions let him complete drawings nearly 10 times faster than AutoCAD, and he is learning new 3D capabilities every day mostly just by happening upon SolidWorks features. “Moving from 2D to SolidWorks 3D CAD puts you in a world that somehow prompts you to tinker, or refine, more frequently to produce a better product,” he says. “Rather than designing something in black, white and numbers, you can spin it around, check it out and change a little here and there to hopefully improve it.”