You wouldn't download a car...

[Kaido]

...or would you?

https://3dprint.com/206678/3d-printed-electric-car/

The LSEV has two out of three – it’s not autonomous, but it is electric and 3D printed. Mostly 3D printed, anyway – the two-seater car from Italian manufacturer XEV has all of its visible parts 3D printed except for the chassis, seats and glass. The car was developed in collaboration with Polymaker, which was responsible for the R&D of the material used to 3D print the LSEV. Using 3D printing enabled the manufacturers to reduce the number of parts in the car from over 2,000 to only 57, while research and development time was shortened by two thirds. Investment costs were also reduced by more than 70 percent in comparison to a traditionally manufactured vehicle.

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[dave_the_nerd]

The hell I wouldn't.

 

[whm1974]

Hopefully stuff like this will make new cars easier and cheaper to maintain and repair.

 

[ElFenix]

"car"

 

[Fenixgoon]

i can't imagine it would pass FMVSS, but as an overall concept in terms of reduction in complexity - very impressive!

 

[gorcorps]

Hopefully stuff like this will make new cars easier and cheaper to maintain and repair.

If you want to replace all of your exposed panels with plastic I guess... I sure don't. Plus the stuff that was printed isn't even the stuff that's expensive to repair, it's just for the cosmetics.

 

[Midwayman]

I don't know why you'd want to.

1. 3d printing is SLOW. Like way slower than you think if you haven't dealt with one.
2. 3d printing isn't exactly reliable. Failed prints for no good reason are common. I'm sure commercial printers are better, but they are finicky machines
3. The surface finish on FDM parts (what they are likely using) is ass.
4. 3d printed parts are weaker than the same part cast. It breaks on layer lines
5. Most FDM material that I know of don't react well to UV
6. In any volume injection molding is way cheaper.

I mean its interesting for a prototype, and maybe we'll get there with multi-material printers eventually, but I just don't see the point of interior panels. The cool thing about 3d printing from a production standpoint is that complexity is essentially free. If you do a sinstered metal part you can create something that would be hard or impossible to do with traditional machining. Interior panels? meh.