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Local Motors Looks To Disrupt the Auto Industry With 3D-Printed Car Bodies
An anonymous reader writes: Local Motors solicits design ideas through crowdsourcing, allows anyone to use open source software to contribute ideas, and then 3D prints car bodies according to the chosen specs in a matter of days. To prove they mean business, Local Motors 3D-printed a car on the floor of the Detroit Auto Show last week. "It took 44 hours to print the Strati’s 212 layers. Once 3D printing is complete, the Strati moves to a Thermwood CNC router—a computer-controlled cutting machine that mills the finer details—before undergoing the final assembly process, which adds the drivetrain, electrical components, wiring, tires, gauges, and a showroom-ready paint job."
Here's another big difference from the current auto industry: "Customers can also bring their vehicles in at any time for hardware and software upgrades, or they can choose to melt their vehicle down and, for instance, add a seat. Because Local Motors uses a distributed manufacturing system to make only what is purchased, it doesn't stock inventory. Anyone can come into a Local Motors microfactory, use its design lab, and work on a vehicle project free of charge."
Here's another big difference from the current auto industry: "Customers can also bring their vehicles in at any time for hardware and software upgrades, or they can choose to melt their vehicle down and, for instance, add a seat. Because Local Motors uses a distributed manufacturing system to make only what is purchased, it doesn't stock inventory. Anyone can come into a Local Motors microfactory, use its design lab, and work on a vehicle project free of charge."
Let's collaboratively engineer the simplest to maintain car with the cheapest/most available and universal parts!
So that the car could be made in the living room.
Everyone forgot the size of the door....
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
That's awesome, but how does that relate to crash-testing & safety standards?
Are these such low-volume the normal regulations don't apply?
Do they embed reinforcements or print around a base frame?
Sounds like an awesome concept, but so many questions...
Tell me the frame isn't printed plastic, please. Safety ratings? Top speed? Crash tests? Price? Sounds cool, but I'd rather not die in a shower of plastic bits when an inattentive SUV driver plows into me during rush hour.
http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rule...
Life is not for the lazy.
In reality all this lets you do is reskin a standard car with any sort of body that you want, but under the hood it is still the same as every other car. Which is probably still a good thing - otherwise maintenance becomes a nightmare.
Yeah, I'll bet the auto manufacturers are really losing sleep over this 'disruption'. Gee, they can print out a body in only 44 hours - what's it take a real manufacturer, 2 seconds? And how does a car that 'anybody' can design even begin to meet safety standards? Or are safety standards just another 'regulatory capture'?
First of all FFS put a link to the actual company in the the summary, and don;t just link to a blog talking about it. How hard is that to do? Local Motors
Ok .. its a 3d printed body of a car that slips onto a pre-built electric car chassis (from Renault according to their FAQ). But the big question I have is about this statement in the FAQ:
Does it drive?
Hell yeah. Once the 3D-printed car is cleared by U.S. vehicle rules and regulations, it will be drivable on public roads; our goal is to complete this in 2015.
What I don't know about US car regulations is what is needed to certify a car as being able to drive on the road. The classic manufacturers basically get a particular model certified and then stamp out millions that conform to that, and have QA departments that verify what they produce is what the expect to be producing.
But in this case the car is effectively being made from scratch each time on a small jobbing basis. So does that mean that every instance of one of theses cars needs to be certified on a per car basis?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Local Motors is an investment of Bre Petis, of Makerbot fame, as noted on his web page.
I don't know if it is deliberate viral marketing strategy of his or just good investment instinct, but I have noticed that products which make headlines on tech sites trace back to his investments. Another example is the new LIDAR offered at SparkFun from PulsedLight, which, according to this YouTube video, is linked to DragonInnovation.com, another Petis investment.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
So will the Tesla-haters (other than the self-serving parasites Elon has made obsolete) like this, or hate it even more?
If only I could think of a car analogy to help me decide!
Just another dreamer who does not understand that you cannot penetrate existing legal barriers in place to prevent things like this. This "company" clearly has absolutely no idea what it takes to manufacture street legal cars. Good luck running each and every subtly different design through millions of dollars of safety testing and regulation hurdles and actually getting every requirement to pass.
The Rally Fighter is a pretty nice machine, but it is also a bit pricey.
https://localmotors.com/localmotors/rally-fighter/
We either can already 3D print entire cars, or we're doing performance art that still needs a Luddite milling machine (which I guess is done behind a curtain somewhere because 3D printing doesn't need some Luddite finishing).
God am I tired of this 3D horseshit.
Wasn't this the idea behind GM's "Skateboard" concept? Mass produce a few basic chassis where are the functional parts are on a thin platform. Then you could produce a huge variety of bodies to attach, plus customize tuning for performance, ride, handling, etc, to make it seem like completely different vehicles.
An modern auto plant turns out a vehicle approximately once every minute. These vehicles tax 44 hours per unit. The US alone purchases 16M vehicles/year. How will this ever be competitive?
Of course if one reads the article, they are mainly looking at this for prototyping vehicles, particularly military ones, but not the actual production of vehicles. So in short, this is about using 3D printing to prototype something before going to full production. Haven't we been doing that since the 1970s?
In my opinion, this is the way manufacturing as a whole will be. Need a part? Afraid it's too obscure or old to aquire? Call down to the mechanic/auto part shop, they'll have it printed and milled for you in a matter of hours. No extensive stock room, no waiting a day or two for the part to be shipped in from another store or distribution center, any part on demand.
If you think Tesla ruffled some feathers by promoting direct to consumer selling, wait until this takes off. ( if ever )
.. . . lol
Car manufacturers will have KITTENS once they realize their parts department becomes irrelevant when any third party business can now print compatible parts out for a fraction of what the dealerships charge for them. Things like doors, body panels, and the like.
I wonder how long it would take for them to introduce some sort of DRM model into vehicle parts .
[*] Sorry if you got Macgyver theme song running in your head.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If it ever reaches the point where "any third party business can now print compatible parts out for a fraction of what the dealerships charge for them", then what makes you think car manufacturers won't be using the same machines to print the *original* parts? Remember, those third-party businesses have to make a profit selling those parts just like any other business, or they won't be around for long.
The car I drive is 20 years old with plastic panels that have no rust, no dings, and are lightweight.
I'm not sure printing out the 'entire' car in plastic would work, but there are plenty of plastic parts that can be printed out. I'm not sure if it wouldn't be better just to use the old injection molding process though to make a lot of the same parts.
What struck me as the most interesting part of this article was the concept of taking your car to the shop, removing the drive train, and melting the rest down to be used to print a new car.
This would be fantastic. All of a sudden, getting into a crash doesn't mean you have to junk the whole car. You can salvage the body and a lot of the parts (in theory). Wait a week or two and voila, you have a brand new product.
In theory we should be doing this with existing cars, but they just don't seem to be built for it, or there's no facilities that will take them for recycling. If you start out with this as part of the life cycle of the vehicle, well, that could be really cool. This could drastically reduce the price of a vehicle if people are recycling their car parts since you don't have to source nearly as many new materials.
Questions about safety and durability can be addressed over time, I'm sure, and hopefully they won't be so lightweight that they can't be driven in the winters up North.
Love sees no species.
Remember, you can print a gun now - so it is roughly equivelent to metal.
Not really, at least in the engineering sense. You can print a gun except for the parts that have to contain the high pressures of the burning propellant.
Now in the legal sense you can "print" a gun because these non-critical parts are printable, and one in particular is what the government defines to be a "gun" by law and what is required to have a serial number -- the "receiver". The receiver is basically a part that all the other parts get attached to; barrels, bolts, trigger assemblies, stocks, uppers/slides, etc. Of all these parts the barrel is the least 3D printable, both in terms of strength and precision. Where barrels have been printed the ammunition used is generally extremely low powered and failure is still a highly likely outcome. Now consider other complications like the metal barrel being part of the cooling system.
Perhaps an industrial grade metallic 3D printer could lay down a barrel blank but drilling, cutting the rifling, chroming the interior, and polishing would still be add-on manufacturing steps pretty much as the are today with traditionally manufactured barrel blanks.
I would presume scooters and motorcycles have way easier standards to meet since they don't have to do anything to protect the rider - I wonder if it would make more sense to start by producing those. Custom scooter/motorcycle designs could be pretty cool.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> most likely found and are exploiting loopholes. Consider further that they wouldn't have attracted a dime of venture funding without at least some plan to exploit existing legal loopholes.
Much like Uber had "some plan to exploit existing legal loopholes". Also that TV service, I've forgotten the name, whose loophole was having thousands of antennas, one for each customer.
Or Megaupload "we run a file hosting service, just like Dropbox".
Or Rick Perry, who was recently indicted, though he thought he had a legal loophole.
3D printing is great for small volume items that you don't want to stock or are customized each time.
They are not so good for high volume parts. This may make an interesting custom body building option, but a Toyota replacement it is not. The article seemed to imply that the body itself was $10,000+. For a mass car manufacturer the body is $1,000, painted (material, energy and direct labour). The other issue is the properties of material that can be used. Can a 3d printer use galvanized steel? Or make engine blocks (high pressure, cannot have cracks or voids in the cylinder walls)?
In the end maybe for the body mod crowd, not the mass market.
No. Lookit, printing a car body in 44 hours is a joke. Any auto plant in the world can probably turn out a thousand or so a day.
If anything this might be disruptive to MAACO or some other body shop -- dent up your fusion, and they can print out a replacement panel in a day or two.
3d printing is cool, but right now (and probably forever) it's just hype.
http://localmotors.recruiting.com/user-interface-developer/job/5101184
Job: User Interface Developer
Posted: 01/12/2015
Job Status: Full Time
Job Description
At Local Motors we are building so much more than an “App”. Our platform is used to create real products from Verrado Drift Trikes to the Rally Fighter vehicle featured in Transformers 4. In 2010 we entered and won the Experimental Crowd Sourced Vehicle challenge hosted by DARPA. We produced the XC2V in under 6 months time from design to delivering the vehicle to President Obama.
We are looking for an experienced UI Developer to join our core team of passionate developers and engineers. We are a small agile team and as a member you have huge impact on our business. If you are self motivated and passionate about UI then we want to see your resume.
Required Experience:
5+ Years software development experience
3+ Years front-end JavaScript and CSS development
Understanding of different browser performance and behaviors
Solid object oriented programming skills and detailed understanding of the Javascript language
Exceptional UI programming skills with JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS3 within large scale web applications
Proven understanding of the details of UI design and usability principles
Experience using multiple JavaScript technologies, frameworks and libraries (for example, AngularJS, Ember, React, jQuery)
Experience with CSS preprocessors (LESS, SASS)
Solid understanding of JavaScript development practices
Additional Preferred Experience:
Experience with Agile software development methodologies
Ability to create and iterate on mockups and product requirements based on user feedback
GitHub account and familiarity with Git
Experience with AngularJS
Some familiarity with Grunt or other Javascript task runners
Experience with SQL (MySQL, Postgresql)
Experience with NoSQL (Redis, ElasticSearch, Cassandra, CouchDB, MongoDB, or Riak)
Automated testing experience, writing functional and unit tests
Personal Characteristics:
Enjoy being challenged and to solve complex problems on a daily basis
Work well on a team and collaborating with others to clarify requirements
Eager to learn
Dedicated to delivering
Strong communication skills
Excellent problem solving ability
Passionate about moving the web forward
http://localmotors.recruiting.com/user-interface-developer/job/5101184
http://www.yelp.com/biz/local-motors-chandler
No factory in the world can custom build you a car body in 44 hours based on a design you just finished.
People have been designing their own car bodies for many decades. They are called hot rods. Very few regulations apply. 3D printing is capable of creating radically strong structures. It is simply due to the fact that they easily do what machining finds next to impossible and on top of that there need be no seams or joints to fail. Compare the thin walls of a plastci milk jug to metal of the same thickness and that plastic is quite strong, lite weight, and free of rust or corrosion issues. Make that same skin a bit thicker and you can't hurt it with a sledge hammer. 3D printing is my best pick for the ultimate, modern, disruptive technology. China just 3D printed a six story apartment building. Workers best be prepared for a shocking change in just about every facet of their lives. Immagine two workers completing a six story apartment building in 48 hours using 3D printing. The plumbing and wiring conduits can be printed into the walls. We might get to the point where the slab the building sits on is 3D printed and just maybe robots will man the printers so that humans have zero involvement. everyone wave by by to the construction trades.
If the car is really dirty, the heck with washing it. Just turn it in and have it reprinted. :) Ok, maybe not. But:
Reprint if you have a fender-bender. Hailstorm. Cat climbed in an open window and sprayed your seats.
Just reprint the car. Love the idea of having it melted down and re-using the material(s.)
I suspect the feds will have something to say about safety issues, though.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Motor - 5 bhp, 62-mile range, Top Speed - approx. 50mph*
Not quite the definition of 'car', 3D printed or no.
Not interested. I prefer to have cars with proven crash safety features, cars that meet Euro nCAP 5 star rating. Somehow I doubt these would meet even 1 star ratings.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Well, assuming the article saying that the consumer can "design" it really means design, and not just select from a few options to make it custom.
If the manufactured number is small enough, no crash safety testing needs to be done.
Depending on the number they're anticipating on selling and the amount of modification the individuals are doing, they could come under the line because they're just not selling enough of them or even, by legal trickery like 'renting' the machine to the customer who uses it to build his car(with help) and the amount of customization/design work the buyer does, every car each customer makes could be 'unique' enough to count separately and come under the limit.
Printed plastic isn't strong enough, but I wonder if this might find business applications? Vehicles with customized shells to accommodate specialized equipment? I'm thinking of everything from a slot for a generator on vans/trucks used on construction sites to a custom shell designed for a pizza oven to be inserted into a delivery vehicle for the ultimate in freshness.
I don't read AC A human right
Yeah, but you can print an awful lot of things if you have that much power available...
Remember: Some 3d printers print in metal, concrete, tissue cultures, etc... Some of these require rather more power to run the 'print head'.
I don't read AC A human right
The only thing 3D printed on this vehicle was the body. None of the running gear (you know, the parts that usually break) were printed.
The only part of the automaking process that they changed was body/chassis assembly. That part is already highly automated, with robots doing most of the work. Yay, so you get all the automation, with the addition of greater customization. However, the vast majority of the labor is in assembly of the rest of the car. And if every car off the line is different, a lot of the efficiencies you get with the moving assembly line go completely out the window.
Being an old fart; I remember when finding after market parts for vehicles more than a few years old was easy. Then it became fashionable in the 1990s to have a quarterly inventory tax (implemented by many states). Having a recurring inventory tax made it prohibitively expensive to keep ready stocks of repair parts. Even the utility industry went to "just in time" ordering as they were being taxed on their warehouses full of spare pumps, motors, valves.
3D printing looks like an easy way to get a new quarter panel for that 1978 toyota you want to restore. The auto makers no longer stock parts for vehicles over about 5 years old, Custom printing of parts sounds like a wonderful way to supply parts without having to keep an inventory on had and be taxed for it. Wait a minute; that would be a reason for regulators trying to legislate such a business out of the picture.
NRRPT/RCT
True, golf carts aren't great if you have to go across town, but apparently they're quite popular in the retirement areas down in Florida. If you don't walk so well anymore, the weather's nice(though full cab versions exist), and all you want to do is go to the local convenience store or local community center they're great.
You also have UTVs (Utility Task Vehicles), which are golf-car like, but generally more powerful. They're popular in many industrial areas for zipping around while taking up less space than full size vehicles would need. Quicker to get in and out of as well.
Summary: I wouldn't underestimate their ability to sell and be useful in niche categories.
I don't read AC A human right