3D Printing is all the rage these days, so it’s no surprise someone has printed a complete and functional electric automobile, appropriately named the Strati (Italian for “layers”). 18 months ago, Phoenix Arizona company Local Motors teamed up with Cincinnati Incorporated to develop a neighborhood electric car. The project is open source; members are encouraged to share their vehicle design ideas, which are then produced and perfected by the community. The components are then printed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. French automaker Renault produces the electric car battery, motor and suspension. The two seater has a top speed of 40mph and a range of 120 miles.
Italian Michele Anoe’s design was chosen for the first car. The first test drive took place on Sept 13, 2014 (see video). Since then, the printing process has been demonstrated at both the International Manufacturing Technology show in Chicago, and the 2015 Detroit Auto Show. Printing all 800 kilos of thermoplastic components currently takes 44 hours to complete, followed by three days of milling and assembling. Plans are to decrease the printing time to less than 12 hours by the time manufacturing begins at the end of 2015. A futuristic ikea-like microfactory at the National Harbor in Maryland is planned as soon as the appropriate zoning laws are passed.
Scroll down for more photos, videos and contest runner-ups.
Exploded Diagram:
First Test Ride
One day, in the not-too-distant future, you’ll be able to walk into a car dealership, choose a design — including the number of seats — and have a 3D printed car by the end of the day.
Promotional Video
Other Designs
The Internal Strut Frame has an innovative design that uses vertical struts to support the upper surfaces, saving weight and making a sturdy frame/body.
The Aeroblade also employs an innovative use of vertical structures to support external surfaces, catering to the inability of current 3D printing processes to bridge horizontal gaps.
By incorporating simplicity and innovation via smart design and smart deployment of vehicle features, the 3DPCX brings the openness of the road inside the vehicle.
The LM Supernova incorporates interior design elements that are not only innovative and well thought out, but highly functional and lightweight.
The Mirage took an innovation award for incorporating layers to create 3D printed “crumple zones,” which is not only unique, but also very innovative.
The e-spider’s roof design and windshield connections, as well as the incorporation of shielding accessories to allow for use in severe weather, showed a great combination of innovation and practicality.
What do you think? Are 3D printed cars really in our near future?
Davy on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 7:50 am
Look, OK, electric cars are good in a sense that they give us some diversity of transport in a likely BAUdescent. Complexity and energy intensity will fail at some point we just have little to indicate when except a brick wall of POD & ETP of oil. This brick wall shows every indication of 10 years max probably sooner when one factors in the other meat eating black swans circling. These meat eating black swans are most notably the unstable financial system and a deteriorating geopolitical environment.
That said do we really need more technological exceptionalism distractions with no future? We are closing in on a time of crisis yet we see a general “Titanic” attitude that we are invincible and all is well. We see MSM pushing this message and the sheeples buying it. Hopium is at every level. There is a belief from the markets to Main Street that although there are great problems the economy and society will hold. We have this surreal denial of reality of the end of growth, widespread diminishing retunes to all activities, and social fabric destruction. We have a global system in consumption overshoot and a global society in population overshoot. Yet, we dazzle ourselves with 3D-printing technologies with no future.
What we need is technologies with a future. We need a hybridization of the best of today’s technologies with technologies of old. This is needed because a swift return to what we had pre-fossil fuels is not in the cards. We need to learn salvage instead of production. We need to localize and reduce complexity. We need to embrace seasonality and the variability from our original source of power our solar endowment.
I see no future in cars. I see no future in 3D printing. I see no future in computers and digital communications. Since my view is an extremist fringe view my message has no place in this discussion. Since the surrealism of MSM reality is technology and complexity, enjoy this stuff like one would his last meal. Savor every morsel.
I at times want to disappear off line. I have done that before back 12 years ago. I went completely offline being one of the first to embrace online fully. It was liberating and amazing, yet, it also separates and isolates. I am thinking within a few years I will be going offline with everyone else. I am enjoying my last meal with this on-line technology that I am talking to you with now. In some ways I look forward to that day in the not too distant future but I also realize when that time comes life will be difficult and painful.
Rodster on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 8:22 am
Add the eventuality of 3D printed robots. The skies the limit both good and bad when it comes to the technology of 3D printing which is just in its infancy stage.
sunweb on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 9:36 am
And they don’t use energy or mineral resources. they come with a magic wand.
forbin on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 9:47 am
ok so I’ve paid for the design ,as its my own , paid for the feestock to the 3D printer ( did I have to purchase that as well ? ah I see I goto a shop and use theirs for a fee ) then I have to get a major manufacture to supply the real hard bits like motors and steering .
Then I have to get type approval
Then I have to get MoT engineering certification ( ok maybe in the US you guys don’t have to )
And who warrants the thing ? uh oh not Renault as per example as they did a 1 yr RTN to base warranty ??
so breakdowns , spare parts , crash testing …… the list goes on, and oh more oil base products….
I need more convincing this is more than a Big Boy’s toy ( and a rich one at that )
OK in a resource starved world – who can afford the delivery of the bulk feed-stock to a 3D printer?
Not I think , us mere mortals………
Forbin
Revi on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 12:00 pm
This has the potential to become very disruptive technology! We have been building and driving electric cars for about 10 years now, and the idea of 3D printing is going to make it a lot easier! I think it’s awesome. NEV’s are the cars of the future.
Revi on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 12:01 pm
NEV’s use a tiny fraction of the energy that a gas car does. They weigh a lot less, go slower and therefore use about 1/10 of the energy of a traditional car.
hiruitnguyse on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 1:19 pm
I want to see those 3d printed axles, bearing races, hydraulic lines, copper wire, insulation, control arm ball joints, bushings, tie rod ends, armatures, rotors, oilite bronze sleeve bearings….in other words the actual chassis itself, and not just the piece of plastic that sits atop it.
hiruitnguyse on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 1:20 pm
I want to see that 3d printed hypoid drive set also….
Perk Earl on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 1:37 pm
Pretty cool looking 3D printed cars, however look at the middle of the wheel in the first picture – looks like a cotter pin?
3D printing is an amazing development. Could they 3D print a robot or even use cells to print a living organism? Why not print a liver or a kidney? It’s too bad were headed for collapse because this new tech could really do some amazing things if R&D had sufficient time.
Davy on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 1:45 pm
Hiruit, reminds me of the nano tech revolution. You don’t hear much about that anymore. What about superconductors? Where did that end up? The list is getting longer and longer of these technologies that are supposed to revolutionize but end up a fizzle. We are running out of fantasies
I see all this hype as just more of the same delusional technological exceptionalism that we modern humans love so much. When will these illusions end? When will we return to a reality of man in a proper relation with nature not a fantasy world of technological make believe?
We humans in the end are burnt into ashes or made into slowly rotting worm food in the cold ground. This is true of every human I know of now or historically. There is no exceptionalism in ashes and worm food is there! That should be the reminder of what we really are and that is mortals. No amount of technology is going to change that. I think all this exceptionalism is a big brain in denial of death.
J-Gav on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 2:01 pm
Hell, let’s go whole hog and print out a brand new 3D planet!
hiruitnguyse on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 2:04 pm
Indeed Davy!
I could spend hours mulling over all the little parts made by Sintering, Chipless machining, Rolling, Cold Forming, Screw Machine Work, Centreless Grinding, Die Pressing, Hardening, Tempering, ElectroPlating, Electroforming, Autocatloytic Plating, Extrusion, Pressing, Stamping, Drawing, Parting, Blow Moulding, Vacuum Forming, NONE of which could be adequately performed by 3-D.
It is an electric car with a 3-D manufactured pile of plastic sitting on top….and that required the services of the Petroleum Industry to provide for the feedstocks, and electricity to drive.
The servos for the 3-d printers themselves probably operate on some CNC drive system similar to GE Fanuc or Fadal, and the recirculating ballscrews that drive the slides themselves are made by helical grinding. I’m dying to see the first set of 3-d printed ABEC-5 Class preloaded angle contact ball bearings hit the market. Not to mention those 3-d printed hydraulic brake cylinder bores and seals.
I pretty much live each day as it comes now. I bought 2 kids lunch, worked on a 60’s Spartus Cat Clock for one of their grandmothers (it will wag its tail and blink its eyes for at least as long as the power stays on), and spent the rest of the morning admiring the Slender Speedwell and Henbit that is blooming out and slowly turning the yard various shades of blue and purple,
Good Luck!
apneaman on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 2:36 pm
As industrial civilization approaches it’s denouement the shouts of the contrarian techno-utopians get louder. I find their complete disconnect from reality to be fascinating. It is like watching a case study from a psychology text book unfold in real time. A few years ago here in Vancouver BC transit had 20 hydrogen powered buses, but got rid of them because of the costs. After a few days of bitching the techno utopians just transferred their dreams to the next hopeless techno-fix. They remind me of addicts who keep switching drugs, but never talk about the underlying problem. Maybe we can 3D print some crops when the temperature hits 4degrees above baseline- when the proteins start to denature.
BC Transit’s $90M hydrogen bus fleet to be sold off, converted to diesel
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-transit-s-90m-hydrogen-bus-fleet-to-be-sold-off-converted-to-diesel-1.2861060
The next big dream here is the hydrogen car/economy….again. Privileged British Colombians (the majority) must be seen as green and environmentally friendly as we consume our way to eco destruction. We are working real hard to ignore all the melting sea stars and dead seals off our coast. I think we invented Green Washing.
First hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in Canada to be offered in Vancouver
http://globalnews.ca/news/1693727/first-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-in-canada-to-be-offered-in-vancouver/
Plantagenet on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 5:33 pm
This is way cool. Revi is right—-electric cars are light, fuel efficient, and can be built cheaply. This isn’t pie-in-the-sky. This is happening right now!
Its good to know that long after Detroit stops bending iron, we can print plastic parts and still make cars!
Print me a convertible in red, please!
Poordogabone on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 7:04 pm
How is electric car fuel efficient? every time you convert energy into a different form there is a loss of that energy. In the case of electric cars you first need to convert an energy source most likely coal into electricity, big loss and then charge a battery more loss. In the end you have lost half of the energy that the coal initially contained before you even start you car.
Makati1 on Wed, 4th Mar 2015 7:11 pm
sunweb, you popped the techies wet dream … again. That is , IF they even heard you. The blinders and rose colored glasses prevent many on here from seeing the real world. Reality is going to hit them hard someday soon.
Fred's Horseradish on Thu, 5th Mar 2015 11:10 am
I’m having trouble with the idea! Are some people getting carried away with their fantasies?