EADS Bicycle Made of Steel-Strength Nylon

Zothecula writes "Engineers from the Bristol wing of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) have announced the development of the first bicycle using Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM) technology. The manufacturing process involves 'growing' the components from a fine nylon powder, similar in concept to 3D printing. Said to be as strong as steel, the end product is claimed to contain only a fraction of the source material used by traditional machining, and the process results in much less waste. It also has the potential to take manufacture to precisely where the component or product is needed, instead of being confined to factories often located a great distance away."

Comments

Price isn't prohibitive to serious riders

[unassimilatible]

"this kind of manufacturing is still incredibly slow and expensive. This is still proof of concept for consumer items"

Spoken like a non-cyclist. The most lucrative market in bicycles isn't cheap commodity bikes like Schwinns, it's in lightweight road enthusiast and racing bikes. Price isn't the determining factor, which is why bicycle companies can charge thousands for carbon fiber frames.

Besides, if adopted, economy of scale would drop price dramatically. Prototypes are always more expensive than real-world products. CINC machines used to cost millions. Now I know a guy with one in his home's garage - he machines custom CAD-designed copper evaporator heads for phase-change computer cooling units.