The Blade 3D Printed Supercar is Unveiled by Divergent Microfactories

Kevin Czinger, founder and CEO of Divergent Microfactories (DM), is speaking today at the O'Reilly Solid Conference in a keynote presentation entitled, "Dematerializing Auto Manufacturing." DM is unveiling a revolutionary approach to car manufacture, as evidenced by their supercar, the Blade. Using 3D printed aluminum 'nodes' in strategic manufacture reduces the pollution and environmental impacts of automotive production, as well as lowering the weight and materials in a car. The Blade, weighing in at just 1,400 pounds, can go from 0-60 MPH in only 2.2 seconds--and DM is planning to scale up production. They plan on making the technology available to others as well. Read more about this innovation in the full story: http://3dprint.com/74810/3d-printed-supercar-blade/
Below is a look at the Blade supercar:http://3dprint.com/wp-content/upload...3-1024x679.png

Surely, I'm not the only guy who thinks this is super-cool!!

It's a great concept! It'd certainly be interesting to see a cost analysis of the bare chassis. Also, kinda surprised that the "nodes" don't look rather more organic, if they're so optimally designed.

Cheers!

Pot8osh3D

[QUOTE=Elpulpo;61639]Surely, I'm not the only guy who thinks this is super-cool!!

It's a great concept! It'd certainly be interesting to see a cost analysis of the bare chassis. Also, kinda surprised that the "nodes" don't look rather more organic, if they're so optimally designed.

Cheers!

One offs would be a No! No! in Europe.
Only if you can convince the authorities that any chassis / tub or suite of sub frames is largely unchanged, do you get an easier ride.
I can't see this being allowed past prototyping without the entrenched legislation smothering it.
Nodes might be relatively heavy so keep them to a mechanical minimum.

Rgds.

That's truly terrifying on so many levels.

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Originally Posted by Prof Pat Pending

That's truly terrifying on so many levels.

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Why? Nothing about their construction method is ground breaking other than the use of 3d printing for the couplings. Trellis frames have been around forever on motorcycles (see ducati as a primary example) and for many years on niche performance street cars (see ariel atom). They've been used in racing and lots of other applications as well. CF tubing is incredibly strong and the couplers provide a strong and proven way to join the rods together to allow for more complex shapes that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive to make in a single formed tube. Overall, it's a neat project but as I said, not at all ground breaking.

Not really the same as a Ducati trellis frame or an Atom chassis. If you look at the chassis on the Atom, the top and bottom tubes go all the way along.

Structural bonding is not something I would leave to semi skilled staff and it certainly doesn't take minutes.

Off the shelf CFRP tubes throws up all sorts of questions and alarm bells

if you haven't seen a CFRP tube fail, it's really quite frightening.