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."

Comments

Can you actually drive it?

[OzPeter]

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?

Bre Petis

[Jodka]

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.

Re:NHTSA Safety standards cock-blocks the idea

[Firethorn]

The big exception to safety standards is the antique car.

I'll add one more: The kit car. So long as it's assembled by the owner himself(though he can subsequently sell it intact, it's a bit like selling home-made firearms), it's not considered 'manufactured' and not subject to a lot of the rules.

If they can arrange it so the buyer is 'assembling' the car(even if that means the paperwork says he's renting the machine and buying only the feedstock/parts) as a legal fiction, they can dodge a lot of rules.