3-D Printed Car Nears Production

An anonymous reader writes "An article at Wired shows just how close we are to a 3-D printed car. Jim Kor's 'Urbee 2' design is a lightweight teardrop shape with three wheels. The engine, chassis, and wheels aren't printed, of course, but much of the car is formed layer-by-layer out of ABS plastic. It takes about 2,500 hours of printer time to create the whole thing. Assembly is easier, though, since many different parts can be consolidated into just a few. 'To negotiate the inevitable obstacles presented by a potentially incredulous NHSTA and DOT, the answer is easy. "In many states and many countries, Urbee will be technically registered as a motorcycle," Kor says. It makes sense. With three wheels and a curb weight of less than 1,200 pounds, it's more motorcycle than passenger car. No matter what, the bumpers will be just as strong as their sheet-metal equivalents. "We're planning on making a matrix that will be stronger than FDM," says Kor. He admits that yes, "There is a danger in breaking one piece and have to recreate the whole thing." The safety decisions that'll determine the car's construction lie ahead. Kor and his team have been tweaking the safety by using crash simulation software, but the full spectrum of testing will have to wait for an influx of investment cash.'"

Comments

know how I know it's a pipe dream?

[waddgodd]

The (non-existent yet) engine is supposed to be a 10 HP Diesel, but "the head engineer is planning to take the latest prototype from San Francisco to New York on 10 gallons of gas, preferably pure ethanol" (FTFA). Diesel-cycle engines work better on esters rather than alcohols. Even assuming that you could keep a diesel-cycle engine happy with ethanol (which is an open question), the modifications required to make it work will basically make it useless for the standard diesel you find at truck stops. Had the engineer said that he planned to go SFO->NYC on 10 gallons of fuel, preferably biodiesel (which has more in common with cooking oil than liquor), I'd have more confidence that the engineer knew a hawk from a handsaw.

Re:know how I know it's a pipe dream?

[0100010001010011]

That's 2,905 miles (4675 km). They're estimating 290 MPG. 0.81 L / (100 km)

VW had a prototype out for the 1L car that was much more streamlined and still only got 1L/100 km.

Re:know how I know it's a pipe dream?

[Rhys]

I'm bemused the assumption is the engineer is an idiot, not the reporter or marketdroid that wrote it.

Stronger than Steel

[BasilBrush]

From the title of TFA: Stronger than Steel.

I doubt it.

Re:Stronger than Steel

[h4rr4r]

I don't. Lots of common materials are stronger than steel in either compression or tension or for a given mass. Most hit only one of those, the rare materials that get all three costs many times what steel costs and have far more complicated fabbing processes. Like this 3D printed car, which I bet costs a lot more than stamping body panels with a transfer press.

Re:Stronger than Steel

[mlts]

I wonder if they can do a two-stage composite process... have a steel chassis set up, then have the 3D printer do its "printing" around and encapsulate the frame in the design completely. Done right, it would be similar to rebar in concrete, producing both the shape wanted, but with far more strength than the plastic alone.

Someone had to say it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you download a car?

2,500 hours to print car?

[schwit1]

That's 104 days. I don't see the economics working out.

Re:2,500 hours to print car?

[mothlos]

While I am skeptical about a lot of things in this project, this likely isn't as bad as one might think. This is the full serial time to build all of the components, which could be parallelized, meaning that in production they would only have to worry about the single component with the longest generation time. This is probably still quite a long time using this technique.

Re:2,500 hours to print car?

[Bigby]

In 1995, it took hours to download a few MBs. I don't see the digital music business ever working out, let alone videos and movie streaming.

Re:2,500 hours to print car?

[iroll]

This just in: given unlimited resources, people can do simple things in impractical ways. Film at 11.

In 1995, it was impractical to download videos on demand. Being the first idiot to wait 104 days for a video to download doesn't make you a pioneer; it means you have the resources to waste doing something impractical.

These kind of demonstrations are different than actually doing something to develop the technology. We know what the state of the art is, and we see inklings of what could be done in the future. Generating trivial results doesn't do anything more to drive that point home.

You wouldn't download a car, would you ?

[drsmithy]

Yes, yes I would.

The engine, chassis, and wheels aren't printed

[Anonymous Coward]

"The engine, chassis, and wheels aren't printed, of course"

So, the bits that make it go. The bits that distinguish it as a car instead of being a small room with some uncomfortable chairs.

Anybody can stick a fucking wooden box on a car base and call it a car.

Failure to learn from history

[h4rr4r]

Covering the front wheels like that is a bad move, SAAB taught the world that long ago. They had to flare out the wheel arches to deal with it when they built the Ursaab prototype.

Snow will build up between the wheels and the body, the driver will not notice this until he tries to turn and the car continues in a straight line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursaab

Re:In the mean time...

[sadr]

However, you can't mold honeycombs, foams, or other objects with complex internal structures that might be more efficient.

Then it's just a question of comparing the costs of industrial printing a part vs. the other ways you can improve vehicle efficiency.

rep-rapture of the Gnurds

[Thud457]

That's 104 days. I don't see the economics working out.

What is the time and cost to transport the final vehicle to Mars?

what's the point? The man from Mars stopped eatin' cars. Now he only eats guitars.