Stratasys and Kor Ecologic recently teamed to develop Urbee, the first car ever to have its entire body 3-D printed with additive manufacturing processes which prints out layers of the material on top of each other until a finished product appears.
The two-passenger hybrid aims to be fuel efficient, easy to repair, safe to drive and inexpensive to own. The electric/liquid fuel hybrid can deliver more than 200 miles per gallon on the motorway and 100 miles per gallon in the city.
All exterior components -- including the glass panel prototypes -- were created using Dimension 3D Printers and Fortus 3D Production Systems at Stratasys’ digital manufacturing service -- RedEye on Demand.
“Other hybrids on the road today were developed by applying ‘green’ standards to traditional vehicle formats," says Jim Kor, president and chief technology officer, Kor Ecologic. “Urbee was designed with environmentally sustainable principles dictating every step of its design."
3D Printed
"FDM lets us eliminate tooling, machining, and handwork, and it brings incredible efficiency when a design change is needed," Jim Kor, president and chief technology officer at Kor Ecologic explained in a press release. "If you can get to a pilot run without any tooling, you have advantages."
The 3D printing technology eliminates tooling, machining and handiwork, creating great efficiencies when a design change is needed. The same technology has been used in the UK by Gordon Murray Design to help create the avant-garde T.25 city “eco-car” which was unveiled in July.
A full-scale Urbee prototype will be displayed for the first time in the US at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas.
3-D printing has been used for manufacturing before. Boeing, for example, prints some airplane parts using the process. And a company called Bespoke Innovations is using 3-D printing to manufacture prosthetic limb casings. But Urbee is entirely 3-D printed--all exterior components were produced with Dimension 3D Printers and Fortus 3D Production Systems by Stratsys.
It's efficient, too. Urbee, which competed in the 2010 X-Prize Competition, gets up to 200 mpg on the highway and 100 mpg in city conditions using either gasoline or ethanol. No word on whether Urbee will go into mass production, but Stratasys is showing it off at this week's SEMA Show in Las Vegas. And this might just be the beginning of the 3-D printed car revolution, if Stratasys and Kor Ecologic have their way.
The two-passenger hybrid aims to be fuel efficient, easy to repair, safe to drive and inexpensive to own. The electric/liquid fuel hybrid can deliver more than 200 miles per gallon on the motorway and 100 miles per gallon in the city.
All exterior components -- including the glass panel prototypes -- were created using Dimension 3D Printers and Fortus 3D Production Systems at Stratasys’ digital manufacturing service -- RedEye on Demand.
“Other hybrids on the road today were developed by applying ‘green’ standards to traditional vehicle formats," says Jim Kor, president and chief technology officer, Kor Ecologic. “Urbee was designed with environmentally sustainable principles dictating every step of its design."
3D Printed
"FDM lets us eliminate tooling, machining, and handwork, and it brings incredible efficiency when a design change is needed," Jim Kor, president and chief technology officer at Kor Ecologic explained in a press release. "If you can get to a pilot run without any tooling, you have advantages."
The 3D printing technology eliminates tooling, machining and handiwork, creating great efficiencies when a design change is needed. The same technology has been used in the UK by Gordon Murray Design to help create the avant-garde T.25 city “eco-car” which was unveiled in July.
A full-scale Urbee prototype will be displayed for the first time in the US at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas.
3-D printing has been used for manufacturing before. Boeing, for example, prints some airplane parts using the process. And a company called Bespoke Innovations is using 3-D printing to manufacture prosthetic limb casings. But Urbee is entirely 3-D printed--all exterior components were produced with Dimension 3D Printers and Fortus 3D Production Systems by Stratsys.
It's efficient, too. Urbee, which competed in the 2010 X-Prize Competition, gets up to 200 mpg on the highway and 100 mpg in city conditions using either gasoline or ethanol. No word on whether Urbee will go into mass production, but Stratasys is showing it off at this week's SEMA Show in Las Vegas. And this might just be the beginning of the 3-D printed car revolution, if Stratasys and Kor Ecologic have their way.