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Local Motors Looks To Disrupt the Auto Industry With 3D-Printed Car Bodies

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-wouldn't-download-a-car? dept.

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."

23 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Sitting outside was the hopper full of plastics... by postbigbang · · Score: 3, Funny

    So that the car could be made in the living room.

    Everyone forgot the size of the door....

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  2. Crash-testing & strength? by RogL · · Score: 2

    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...

    1. Re:Crash-testing & strength? by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 3, Informative

      I agree completely... I don't know what percentage of time is spent engineering the safety of a car... and I know it's super cool and kitchey to "design your own car" and "3D print it" and stuff, but what happens when someone prints a car that is aerodynamically unstable at 80mph?

      "My test drives were all fine... but once I decided to open it up on a country road, I lost control and hit a horse drawn carriage full of people."

      There are reasons it takes millions and years to get a car roadworthy.

      Also, who's gonna handle the recalls if you share your design with someone else?

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    2. Re:Crash-testing & strength? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Funny

      "My test drives were all fine... but once I decided to open it up on a country road, I lost control and hit a horse drawn carriage full of people."

      That means you went over 88mph.

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    3. Re:Crash-testing & strength? by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 2

      You can't 3D print 1.21 gigawats.

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    4. Re:Crash-testing & strength? by aitikin · · Score: 2
      FTA (yes I know, this is slashdot, and someone actually RTFA, unbelievable) they already succeeded in exceeding expectations and destroying the long expected timeframe with a project for DARPA:

      In 2011, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) approached Local Motors with a challenge: Design a combat support vehicle for use in Afghanistan more cheaply and quickly. Local Motors solicited design ideas on its website, chose the best out of the 162 that it received, and built and delivered the vehicle, called the XC2V, in four months– a timeframe considered impossibly fast.

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  3. NHTSA Safety standards cock-blocks the idea by DigiShaman · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rule...

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    1. Re:NHTSA Safety standards cock-blocks the idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, the full article incorrectly reported:

      "Depending on the options chosen by the buyer, the Strati will retail between $18,000 and $30,000, and it is expected to be highway-ready in the next year."

      When we asked Local Motors about crash performance at NAIAS this year, they confirmed that these vehicles aren't going to be usable on public roads. Neat idea, but very very far from being a game changer....

    2. Re:NHTSA Safety standards cock-blocks the idea by bzipitidoo · · Score: 2

      I've looked into bringing a car from Mexico to the US. Latin America has lots of models that aren't available in the US, such as the Ford Ka. Unfortunately, US safety standards thoroughly "cock block" that idea. It can be done, but it's not worth doing. A car made to Mexican safety standards, such as they are, I think can be driven in the US by Mexican owners, but can't be simply bought and driven by US citizens. A US citizen can't pop down to Mexico, buy one of these cars and just drive it back to the US and get it all properly titled and licensed. No, it has to be brought up to US safety standards, which means thousands of dollars of work to strengthen the B pillars and other areas of the passenger compartment. Then the owner might want to think about hot rodding the car a bit to compensate for all the extra weight those safety modifications added.

      The big exception to safety standards is the antique car. It can be heavily modified, but so long as the owner has a title to one of the real things, he can say it counts as whatever the original car was.. A US citizen can legally drive a "T-bucket" (a highly modified Model T). It's dangerous but legal. So what many automobile experimenters do is get the shell of an antique, and stick whatever power train they want in it.

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    3. Re:NHTSA Safety standards cock-blocks the idea by Firethorn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

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  4. Disruption? by bws111 · · Score: 2

    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'?

    1. Re:Disruption? by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 2

      I know. People need to stop using the term "disruption." They don't know what it means and aren't using it correctly. Just stop.

    2. Re:Disruption? by bws111 · · Score: 2

      The hundreds of dollars is usually mostly made up of the cost of making it look good - sanding, painting, etc. Unless these cars are going to be just raw material, with no finish (not even UV protection), they will have the same issues. And if they are going to be just raw materials with no finish, yuck.

  5. Can you actually drive it? by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

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    1. Re:Can you actually drive it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Custom built cars have only need to meet particular set of standards. If you can get the tag you are usually fine. Getting the tag in no way means NHTSA certified. It usually means you have particular things in your car. For example 2 break/head/color lights, particular types of breaks, wheels are covered, muffler if it is ICE, etc. You car could be a total disaster in a crash yet you can still drive it on the road.

      There are particular safety things they do enforce (must have seat belts and possibly airbags these days). But as long as you can get it past the inspector you can drive it. Crashing is where the certification comes in. You do not necessarily have to crash them to make it legal on the road...

      This also varies from state to state even city to city.

  6. Re:Open Auto by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

    I'm just waiting for the established automakers to buy a few new 'rule changes' in the NTSB to make these illegal...

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  7. Bre Petis by Jodka · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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  8. Take this NADA by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2
    Since the buyers technically "make" their own cars, they would be treated more like the kit-car [*] and hobbyists of the past. The NADA had ignored that segment till now and there is lots of precedents for selling kits without going through the auto dealers.

    [*] Sorry if you got Macgyver theme song running in your head.

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  9. Re:Open Auto by Coren22 · · Score: 2

    I am reminded of the anti copyright infringement commercial "Would you steal a car?". No, but I would copy a car.

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  10. Re:Open Auto by peragrin · · Score: 2

    Regulatory capture is the new Nazi/ Goodwin.

    It is like these people want the USA to look like China once again with smog filled cities, posioned water supplies, cars that kill every time there is a 10 mph accident as the human body can't take it.

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  11. Re:Open Auto by bws111 · · Score: 2

    Consider that Local Motors themselves said the cars are not street legal.

    I had not considered the 'we're disruptive so laws don't apply to us' aspect. Assuming they want to operate as a legitimate company and not have a bunch of dead customers, I am sure even you could find some laws in here that would make a 'design it yourself' car made out of printed plastic just a bit of a problem, especially in the 'crashworthiness' section.

  12. Re:Only printing the bodies, of course. by Todd+Palin · · Score: 2

    The body is way more than a skin around everything else. The body IS the structure of the car. They don't have frames anymore. The body provides the stiffness for everything. Drive train components anchor to it. The body provides crash protection as the structure crumples to absorb energy.

    I'm not saying it is impossible, but the body is a way more complicated structure than most folks think. A car body isn't just a style statement. Many of the shapes we see over and over in cars are there for rigidity and crash protection, not just for looks. Switching from steel to printed plastic panels means a shitload of engineering issues to solve. Steel is a pretty well understood material. Printed plastic panels are a totally new ballgame.

  13. Say... by fyngyrz · · Score: 2

    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.

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