3D printed car drives down Las Vegas strip

US based Local Motors has 3D printed a fully working crowd-sourced car called Strati. The company proved as much at a US trade show, where it printed the body of the car in 44 hours. Upon completion it was driven along the Las Vegas strip.

Strati was printed using a Big Area Additive Manufacturing machine put together by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The car needed some subtractive manufacturing also, choosing a CNC routing machine to finish the build.

In total the car takes 44 hours to print, one day to mill and two days to assemble, making a five day build process in total.

Strati is the result of the 3D Printed Car Design Challenge run by the company. It claims it is the first time that the main portion of a car has been printed in one piece using direct digital manufacturing.

The car is all electric with many components, like the battery, motor, wiring and suspension being sourced separately from a variety of suppliers and installed by the Local Motors team.

Author
Justin Cunningham

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