A California automotive start-up hopes its prototype supercar will redefine car manufacturing. The sleek racing car, dubbed "Blade", didn't come off an assembly line but out of a 3D printer.
Kevin Czinger, founder and CEO of Divergent Microfactories, has spent most of his career in the automotive industry. One day he realised that no matter how fuel-efficient or how few tailpipe emissions a car has, the business of car manufacturing is destroying the environment.
"3D printing of metal radically changes that. By looking at 3D printing not for that overall structure but to create individual modular structures that can be combined, that 3D printing transforms everything," said Czinger during an interview with Reuters in Silicon Valley.
According to Czinger, 3D printing achieves this by changing the way the structural components of cars are fabricated. Cars are currently pieced together on long assembly lines inside large factories that use massive amounts of energy. Even the most fuel-efficient car has a large carbon footprint before even leaving the plant.
Czinger and his team's approach was to take the large assembly plant out of the equation. To accomplish this, they printed the modular pieces that are used to connect carbon rods that make up the Blade's chassis.
"The 3D-printed chassis is only 102 pounds [46kg] and has the same strength and safety protection as a frame made out of steel," said Brad Balzer, the lead designer on the project.
By using carbon fibre instead of steel or aluminium for the body, the entire vehicle only weighs 635kg, giving it twice the weight to horsepower ratio of a Bugatti Veyron.
The Blade is fitted with a 700 horsepower engine that runs on natural gas, reducing its carbon footprint even further.
Balzer says designing an eco-friendly speed demon supercar as the first prototype was intentional.
"We focused a lot on the aesthetics of this car because it is very important to capture the people's imaginations, especially when we are talking about the core enabling technologies," he said.
The core enabling technology, the ability to print out car components that can be easily assembled, is what Czinger hopes will revolutionise car manufacturing. He says electric cars are a step in the right direction, but alone they will not be enough to curb greenhouse emissions given the projected rise in demand for cars globally unless the way they are manufactured changes.
"By constructing a car this way, it has less than one-third of the environmental and health impact than the 85 hours all electric cars for example have," he added.
Czinger and Balzer are starting small but believe their new 3D printing method for car manufacturing will have a huge impact on how the cars of the future are built.
Share