Your 3D-printed car will be ready to drive in 44 hours

This car looks great. Imagine an assembly line of these cars being printed.

You knew the printed car was going to happen, but as soon as this weekend? That’s when the first printed car arrives. It will be built up from carbon-reinforced plastics, then driven out of Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center and onto the streets of the Windy City. The vehicle will be printed over 44 hours. Technicians will add in the unprintable — electric motor, battery, wiring, window glass — and the car, called Strati, should be out the door Saturday.

Check out the car below in the video.



The article ends with this:

If a regional facility or even your dealership printed the car of your dreams this week, it might change the nature of the car business. We’d say it’s for the better. Someone working an assembly line might feel differently.

www.extremetech.com...

Things are changing.

a reply to: neoholographic

Screw the car I'm waiting for one of these 3d devices to print me up dinner!

How hard can it be?

a reply to: neoholographic

That thing looks fun. When the price is right I am in.

What's great about such things is that they need to redesign it for some reason they don't need to retool anything just change the schematics on the computers. Imagine being able to design your own car.

Seeing as how it is essentially one continuous piece of plastic should make it pretty strong and easily recycled.

I am sure they won't allow it in the USA. It would be to light and have to good of gas mileage. So American greed would not allow it. They will use a different excuse though. I my self would not buy one unless they made separate parts and put them together. If any damage happened you would need a whole car replacement to make it look nice again. So it would have to be super cheap to get me to buy one. I see your point about jobs. But unfortunately that is the future. Robotics and automation have been taking the worker out of the picture for a long time, with vast strides in innovation lately it will move fast and poverty will result. America and other countries need to stop demonizing people for being self sufficient and living of the grid and off the land. It will become more necessary as time goes on and lees can get jobs. Governments should be encouraging that and funding ways to help this to happen. They won't want to support all those people when there is no work. They won't want the crime that will result from mass poverty. When people are starving and desperate the will do what is needed to survive it is human nature.

a reply to: neoholographic

What about parts? How does that work? Get into a fender bender and then what? It is cool and if they get cheap enough I'm in too.

Nice!

I had a vision watching that too, one where a small child and his grandfather are talking, and the grandfather tells the boy about a time when it took days to print out cars...

"Thats silly grandpa. it's instant."
"Not when I was young, it took 2 days to print a car."
"you're old grandpa... *giggles*"

much like you show a child a record today.... "you put it on a table, and a needle goes in it? thats stupid.."

Or that facetious video of the teenagers mocking old green screen computers and shrugging when they cant get the internet on it...

right now, we are nipper listening to his masters voice...

a reply to: FlySolo

You would just have to 3d print any parts that you crash or break, accept the motor and electronics.

originally posted by: AnteBellum
a reply to: neoholographic

Screw the car I'm waiting for one of these 3d devices to print me up dinner!

How hard can it be?

I dunno, I think the carbon fiber-reinforced acrylonitrile butadiene styrene material taste would be a little hard to stomach.

You could just use a fork and mash spuds into a knutters knoll? Oo

a reply to: Darkblade71

I can't see how that would work, there's no interchangeable parts.

a reply to: FlySolo

I would think you could just cut a piece out and print up the "patch/replacement" piece for that area of the vehicle and weld it together with some bondo or something.

Just guessing but that is how I would do it.

I'm sure they can make smaller sections.

a reply to: FlySolo

I used to watch a ding repair guy at one place fix plastic bumpers that had been bashed in. He would use a heat gun to soften the plastic then pull them out sometimes as good as new but the ones that were worse he could fix with some added bondo. I imagine there would be a limit as to how many times or how much could be done but plastic is pretty malleable when heated.

If this really takes off and printers are more available then if a car is too damaged as long as the mechanics are still working one would simply trade in the body and switch over the engine and electronics. I think these are being marketed for electric drives anyway.

Another aspect I thought about is cars could be printed for your local codes. I was in another thread and a car designer told me how because some states have specific rules they have to design those add ons into every car which adds cost to everyone. The example he gave was one state made a law that roll overs have to be survivable for someone who isn't wearing a seatbelt so the headliners in all cars have to crumple which adds a few K to everyones car. I don't know about you but I always wear a seatbelt dieing in a car isn't for me.

a reply to: neoholographic

Looks neat. Lets hope these Printing Machines can build Boats/Yachts too. i want a Yacht!! A cheap one.

Looks great but i wonder how it holds up to the crash test.. If id venture to guess. Id say not well..

a reply to: HooHaa

When plastic is designed properly it can hold more pressure than steel s I will disagree with you on that. Besides have you ever heard of rubber made or the Saturn cars? It is also carbon reinforced which I am sure you have heard of carbon fiber and its strength.

So I definitely have to disagree with your assertion on the crash test aspect.

That brings in the question... "You wouldn't download a car, would you?"

Yep, yep I would.

But honestly, I wouldn't mind printing a few replacement parts for the car I already have - provided they're cheaper than the factory source and as sturdy or better than the original material.

a reply to: neoholographic

My grandparents traveled by horse and buggy. My parents were glued to the radio, and awed by television. ...I still don't have an iPhone, iPod or anything. But I seriously want to make art using 3-D printers.

Oh yeah. The car looks great.

F&S&