This week, San Francisco based startup Divergent Microfactories unveiled a new approach to car manufacturing that uses 3D printing to reduce the pollution, materials and capital costs associated with building cars and other large complex structures. Their show-piece was Blade, a prototype supercar based on this new technology.
The core is a series of ‘nodes’, which are joints that are 3D printed from aluminium. These are then joined together with carbon fibre tubes to create a spaceframe chassis. On top of this, they hung a composite body and dropped in a 700-horsepower bi-fuel engine that can use either compressed natural gas or petrol propelling it from 0-60 in about two seconds. The whole thing is tipping the scales at under 650kg!
While the engine and body aren’t groundbreaking in themselves, the interest lies in this printable, modular chassis. It could simplify chassis design to the point that you could use your CAD package to simply say “I want a suspension mount here, I want an engine mount here, I want wheels here, here, here and here” and it can extrapolate out the spaceframe and generate the ‘nodes’ you require.
I like what Local Motors has done with ‘open source’ car design, and I think that that concept tied in with this manufacturing process opens the doors for some very affordable, and very interesting low-volume vehicle production.
http://www.divergentmicrofactories.com/
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