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Transportation

3D Printed Supercar Chassis Unveiled 134

Posted by samzenpus from the print-and-drive dept.
ErnieKey writes: Divergent Microfactories is unveiling a revolutionary approach to car manufacturing, as evidenced by their supercar, the Blade. Using 3D printed aluminum 'nodes' in strategic manufacturing, they've created an automobile that weighs in at just 1,400 pounds, and can go from 0-60 MPH in only 2.2 seconds. DM will be producing 10,000 cars per year and also making technology available to any other companies interested. Note: Look out in the near future for video interviews with Divergent founder Kevin Czinger and Blade project lead Brad Balzer.
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3D Printed Supercar Chassis Unveiled More

3D Printed Supercar Chassis Unveiled

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  • So how fast does it accelerate to 62.5 mph?
    (just asking for us metric folk)

  • For the rest of the world (Score:4, Informative)

    by GrahamCox ( 741991 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @08:48PM (#49982147) Homepage
    For all of the rest of the world (except Burma, which doesn't count), the car weighs 636kg, and does 0-100 km/hr in 2.2 sec.

  • Super-car? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Grim Reefer ( 1162755 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @09:02PM (#49982239)
    I'm not sure I'd call this a super-car per se. If you go to the company website [divergentm...tories.com] you can see the interior. It has one seat. Which makes it more of a track car. They compare it to a Veyron, which has two leather seats and other amenities. The seat also appears to be more analogous to a mesh office chair than a car seat So I can't imagine it's terribly supportive during high G cornering, unless you have the seat custom made to fit the owner. I'd also like to see skid pad, slalom numbers, etc. If all they're going to give are straight line numbers, at top fuel dragster can go 0-100 mph in .9 seconds. They did a lot of cool stuff to make it light, but I'd like to know more about the suspension and handling.

    • Re:Super-car? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Areyoukiddingme ( 1289470 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @10:48PM (#49982747)

      I'm not sure I'd call this a super-car per se.

      It definitely isn't. It's not street legal anywhere in the world that can afford to buy it (with the possible exception of Dubai). It has no side indicator lights, no side rearview mirrors, and while there are no photos of the rear of the vehicle, I'd be willing to bet it doesn't have the required center brake light. I have a sneaking suspicion that it would perform miserably in crash tests as well. Space frame construction is so rigid that a vehicle built with it tends to injure or kill its occupants (or occupant, in this case) in a collision at much higher rates than other designs, for lack of crumple zones.

      I'd also like to see skid pad, slalom numbers, etc.

      So would I. Space frames don't resist torsional stress very well, which is outright dangerous for high speed handling. You called it a track car. I'll go even farther, and call it a drag strip car. It doesn't sound suitable even for a track, let alone a street. Somebody else commented about the styling "straight out of a kid's calendar" and it definitely looks and sounds like a kid with too much money said "I wanna make a super awesome car! With 3D printing!!!111eleven" and neglected to talk to any mechanical engineers who had been involved in designing actual street legal, street capable cars. They may make 10,000 of them, but they won't look like the thing in the pictures.

      In short, it looks like the concept cars that came out of Detroit for decades that never went into production because they were illegal or dangerous or both.

      • Space frames don't resist torsional stress very well, which is outright dangerous for high speed handling.

        Is that why so many high-speed race cars are built out of a shitload of tubing and not much else? And rock crawlers? Because it doesn't resist torsional stress?

        • I think the answer is 'because the previous poster doesnt know what they are talking about', mostly.

          Having said that, making a great chassis DOES require a lot more than using fancy construction techniques - they may or may not have got it right.

        • Is that why so many high-speed race cars are built out of a shitload of tubing and not much else?

          Were you trying to claim that NASCAR and dragsters are a counter-argument? I'd say that supports my position better than anything else.

          • Were you trying to claim that NASCAR and dragsters are a counter-argument?

            Are you trolling, or are you really ignorant of the amount of engineering that goes into NASCAR? Or dragsters, for that matter? But no, most of the high-end GT cars are mostly tubing, too. And even the low-end ones tend to have tube-frame sections.

            • Are you trolling, or are you really ignorant of the amount of engineering that goes into NASCAR? Or dragsters, for that matter?

              I said the vehicle in the article is a drag strip car, or at best a track car. It is not a street car. You quoted... drag strip cars and track cars as counter-arguments?

              I'm confused.

              As for the engineering, there's this [nascar.com]. Which says, in summary, that you can build any frame you like, except it must have a roll cage, and the roll cage must have a Newman Bar, it must be built of mild steel, it must have the specified tube radii, and it even must be coated in a specified color. Among other restrictions, to t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fgouget ( 925644 )
        Another aspect is that the space tubing uses up a lot of space, hence the single seat in the car. As is it won't ever have an impact on regular everyday cars. So while the approach may be revolutionary, it's only for a niche market and won't revolutionize car manufacturing in general. I also take exception to calling this a '3D printed chassis' when only small bits and pieces are 3D printed.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jaime2 ( 824950 )

        Actually, a tube frame is the tried-and-true way of making a great handling car. I'm currently building a Factory Five 818, which is based on a steel tube frame. It can easily pull 1.5 lateral G's at track height and 1.3G's at street height. It also is actually available and costs less than $20,000. It also only weighs 400 pounds more than this thing and it has a passenger seat.

        Also, this will never be able to be put on the road in most US states without drastically changing the look of the front end. Most

        • Also, this will never be able to be put on the road in most US states without drastically changing the look of the front end. Most states have a minimum headlight height of 22 inches and some have a 24 inch minimum.

          Thank you for that. I thought there was some such limit, but I wasn't sure, so I didn't cite it along with the other list of street-legal fails.

          I had heard that the majority of kit cars were tube frame construction, but I figured that was because tube frame parts pack into a much smaller space for shipping than unibody and unibody assembly requires really long welds that most people shouldn't be doing by hand.

          Also as someone else pointed out, tube frame doesn't necessarily mean space frame. I see all ment

  • Won't compare well to decade-old conventional tech (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweilo8888 ( 921799 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @09:03PM (#49982243)
    Frankly, this isn't terribly impressive. The Ariel Atom 500 will manage a 0-60 of 2.3 seconds or less from 200 *fewer* horsepower than the Blade, thanks to an even lighter weight of 1,213 pounds. And like the Blade, it has space frame construction, they just haven't wrapped some flimsy composite panels and a plexiglass windshield over it all. (But what did that add to the weight, really? I doubt it was 187 pounds, so the Atom is still lighter...)

    All the Atom really lacks is the "look-at-us" headline-grabbing use of 3D printing, which doesn't seem to be bringing terribly much of an advantage to the table here. And I guess, the styling that's right out of a kid's calendar. But really, what's revolutionary here? It's certainly not the construction or performance...

    Up next on Slashdot: A revolutionary new 3D-printed paperweight that holds down paper better than ever. It's going to revolutionize the paperweight industry!

    • The Ariel Atom 500 will manage a 0-60 of 2.3 seconds or less from 200 *fewer* horsepower than the Blade

      Off-topic, but I drive an Ariel Atom in Need for Speed: Most Wanted. It's fast, but it really shines when you want to jump over stuff.

      OK, carry on.

    • For acceleration, it is torque that matters.

      Horsepower governs top-end speed.

      • Well yes, but weight matters more, and I can't very well compare torque when Divergent Microfactories hasn't stated it, now, can I?

        But OK, I'll humor you. The Atom 500 has just 296 lb-ft of torque. That's actually a bit less than what you could find in a typical executive sedan like, say, the Audi A6 (325 lb-ft). The weight is the important bit, though: The Ariel weighs about one-third what the Audi does.

        And like I said, it also weighs less than this supposed-supercar, despite being street-legal and pro

        • Supposedly, the 3D printed frame can be assembled by normal people, without any training, which is interesting, kinda.

          • I'm sorry, but no. The frame could be assembled by normal people without any training without being 3D-printed. It's just buzzword for buzzword's sake, and it's idiotic.

      • No, no it doesnt.. or are you perhaps planning to use a vehicle with no gearbox?

        HP is all that matters (not just peak HP of course, but HP across your used engine rpm range)
        BECAUSE you have a gearbox... and therefore can choose run operate in the rev range you want.

        'Torque is what matters' is the cry of the ye olde V8 lovin redneck.. but provably stupid.

        • 'Torque is what matters' is the cry of the ye olde V8 lovin redneck.. but provably stupid.

          It is clear that you know nothing of engineering. The drive turns the wheels, which at point-of-contact constitute a lever-arm. Force that this lever-arm exerts on the road (making car accelerate) is precisely the definition of torque.

          Pound-for-pound, a Nissan Leaf will beat my Jaguar off the line. . . but only for about 10 meters. The Leaf will never make it to 160 mph, although my Jaguar does. This is because a Leaf, as with any electric-motor car, has a linear power curve, delivering the same power

      • Electric motors get their peak torque at zero RPM. Most suitable for traction applications. Far far superior than mechanical gear box transmissions. That is why diesel electric locomotives run their diesel engines convert their output to electricity and drive the wheels using the electric motors.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jaime2 ( 824950 )
          Trains didn't use mechanical transmissions before diesel-electric. The torque convertor found in every automatic transmission has its roots in train engines. A good torque convertor can transmit over 95% of the drivetrain power to the wheels even at low (or even zero) rpm. That's why a brake-start on a high performance car with an automatic transmission is extremely effective. For a lot of modern cars that are sold with both AT and MT transmissions, the auto is quicker.

        • Very cool. I had always wondered how they accelerate those gigantic loads so slowly but surely, without burning-out transmission gear-boxes.

          Now if only they carried on-board batteries for regenerative braking, then rail would be even more superior to any other land-based transportation system.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jaime2 ( 824950 )

        No. Torque and horsepower are mathematically related. You cannot increase one without increasing the other. Look at all of the 1/4 mile time estimators - all of them figure out elapsed time using only horsepower and weight.

    • I know what a 1200 lb. car looks like, and it is not street drivable. Go to here: http://jjhughesracing.com/ [jjhughesracing.com]

  • Cathodes and Annodes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @09:07PM (#49982267) Homepage Journal

    The problem with metal nodes and Carbon Fiber (CF) tubes, as the Bicycle industry is now learning, is that if you have direct contact between the CF and metal nodes (as the first "Carbon Fiber" bicycles were made, back in the early 1990's), the CF will react with the metal, and given 15 years, become a rolling death trap. Lots of old "Carbon Fiber" bikes on Craigslist now as owners are seeing them fall apart during normal use due to corrosion.
     
    That said, there's no reason why they can't build latticework connecting members that are 3D printed, rather than CF tubes which are not optimized to be dimensionally stable in the direction(s) they'll be loaded the most.

    • Does this still happen when the metal is aluminium?
      When aluminium corrodes, it forms a sealed hard layer, preventing further corrosion.
      Artificially making this layer of corrosion thicker is known as anodising.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by fnj ( 64210 )

        Aluminum does not self-protect when the surface oxidizes. Stainless steel does. Anodizing is not like corrosion. Unlike corrosion, anodizing does protect the metal, but even it is not perfect because it is not a galvanic protection. Anybody living near the seacoast with one of those antique rooftop aluminum TV antennas, even if anodized, knows they progressively rot to pieces and the pieces end up decorating the lawn.

        Make a good close survey of a WW2 warbird which has not been preserved. Corrosion will have

        • Aluminum does not self-protect when the surface oxidizes.

          Well, that's not strictly true. Aluminum oxide is hard and less reactive than the bare metal, shock amazement. It's a lot more self-protective than ferric oxide, ha ha. And anyone who's mistreated stuff made of stainless knows it can certainly rust.

        • Re:Cathodes and Annodes (Score:4, Interesting)

          by gweilo8888 ( 921799 ) on Thursday June 25, 2015 @12:29AM (#49983139)
          Aluminum does not self-protect when the surface oxidizes.

          Ummm... Yes. Yes, it does.

          From Wiki [wikipedia.org]: "Aluminium is remarkable for ... its ability to resist corrosion due to the phenomenon of passivation [wikipedia.org]."

          Or if you prefer, you could just look around your house. Chances are fairly good that you have some untreated aluminum (as opposed to aluminum alloys, which need treatment) somewhere -- perhaps in a window frame if your house is of the right age, or in pots, pans, camping gear, etc. You'll be able to recognize it from its dull finish, and the fact that it looks identical to the day you bought it. Were your assertion correct, it would long since have oxidized away to nothing...

          Incidentally, one of those treatments for aluminum alloys? Alclading [wikipedia.org], which is just what it sounds like it would be, and which wouldn't work if your assertion was correct. It's the process of bonding a thin layer of pure aluminum to the surface of the alloy, thereby protecting the greater whole because the aluminum layer self-protects when it oxidizes.
          • I should also note here that it may not self-protect perfectly. Yes, it is prone to galvanic corrosion, and to pitting, crevice corrosion or staining from contact with impure water, salty or sulfurous air, alkali or dirt. However, that in no way changes the fact that aluminum does self-protect. It just doesn't self-protect against everything.

          • I have a 1962 Streamline 22' "Duchess" Travel Trailer and had to track down some .025 2024-T3 AlClad to make repairs on it. What's really neato about it is that it has a hard side and a soft side, and they're about equally thick. The hard side is dull, the soft side is shiny and easy to polish. Then, if you want it to stay shiny, you either clear coat it occasionally, or wax it regularly.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by KGIII ( 973947 )

              Much initial labor is involved. Seek out, woodworking shops, Butcher's Bowling Alley Wax. Do not attempt to buff by hand. You will blind the tailgaters.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Hadlock ( 143607 )

        It happens specifically when the material is aluminum.

    • the CF will react with the metal, and given 15 years, become a rolling death trap.

      I don't think longevity is foremost in the mind of someone who wants to go from 0-60 mph in 2.2 seconds.

      • the CF will react with the metal, and given 15 years, become a rolling death trap.

        I don't think longevity is foremost in the mind of someone who wants to go from 0-60 mph in 2.2 seconds.

        YOLO.

  • I am sorry, but come up with a different way to put together that chassis, I am not driving a thing that is made of Lego pieces bolted together in real life. A few laps on the track, Ok, IRL on a real road with real potholes and real asphalt and gravel, etc? Hmmm. I don't want pieces of my car becoming pieces of the road or pieces of my body.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This car is made by the free market. There's no government involvement whatsoever, the entire thing is made by a 3D printer and the plans, and even the materials if you wish, can be obtained simply by paying a supplier in bitcoins, and you're free to copy even those.

      So quite honestly, I find your comments slanderous. It is OBVIOUSLY going to be better than a government subsidized deathtrap ie anything from GM, Ford, Chrysler, FIAT, VW, Audi, Honda, Acura, Nissan, Kia, Toyota, Lexus, and so on, ALL of who

      • This car is made by the free market...

        In reply to roman_mir... That was beautiful.

        • I am part of free market, I am not government. Making individual choices to buy or not to buy a product is a free market decision, so nothing at all in that reply that makes even a hint of any kind of sense.

    • Thinking the same thing. What is the crashworthiness of the thing. If you can do 200 mph, it better have a very good safety cell. Something like this Ferrari 458 in Japan that crashed during a race doing 200 mph [youtu.be] (that's 300 kph). The track worker and driver both lived.
  • So you have to compare it to race cars, not so impressive when comparing it apples to apples.

  • Revolutionary approach? (Score:3)

    by tompaulco ( 629533 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @09:37PM (#49982425) Homepage Journal
    How is 3D printing a revolutionary approach to car manufacturing? It is not like they are actually going to use 3D printing to print the cars when they produce them in bulk. If they do, then it truly will be a supercar, because it will cost many times more than traditional manufacturing methods with less strength of materials and quality.

    • How is 3D printing a revolutionary approach to car manufacturing?

      It's not. It's a revolutionary approach to getting clicks on Slashdot.

    • If they managed to build a car that requires no welding, I'd say that's at least "disruptive" if not "revolutionary."

    • The revolution is in being easily able to create complex shapes. Traditional manufacturing methods for these sort of parts fall in one of two categories:
      1. Labor-intensive using simple tools. E.g. Welding the frame from stock pipe and plate.
      2. Amenable to mass production, but at a huge initial cost (for tools). E.g. casting, forging, stamping.

      3D printing allows complex shapes to be created from a CAD model without lots of labor. This is great for small production runs (i.e. runs too small for 2. to be cost-

  • I stopped reading at "1/3 the emissions of an electric car".
    • Exactly.

      The claim that building this car generates 1/3 the emissions of a comparable battery electric vehicle is believable. The lie is that the majority of lifetime emissions are generated during vehicle manufacture. In the real world, BEVs look much better [ucla.edu].

  • Add to that you can't 3D print the body panels and then call it a "3D printed super car."

    Unless you are literally 3D printing the entire car including the engine block and the wheels, you're not 3D printing a car.

  • I doubt it would pass any sort of crash testing.

    I'd also like to know if they've actually tested the acceleration at 2.2 seconds, or if it's calculated based on power-to-weight ratios.

  • very unimpressed (Score:3)

    by Khashishi ( 775369 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @11:33PM (#49982951) Journal

    All the engineering in a car isn't just to make something that is light and moves fast. Slap a rocket on a small frame and you can go fast. It is a tradeoff between performance, safety, reliability, cost, features, efficiency, legality, and design. This thing looks like something that some mech-E students threw together as a senior project, not an actual thing that people could use. They make a big deal out of using 3D printed parts, but then they come up with a design that doesn't take advantage of any of the features of 3D printing, like the ability to make complex internal honeycombed shapes.

  • Runs On Snake Oil (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    These are the same Clowns who blew ~$200,000,000 on the CODA, and after delivering a few cars, went into Bankruptcy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coda_Automotive

    But after all, this is 3-D Printing!!!
    Slashdot needs a story every week or so about some Crackpot or Fraudster pushing some new and 3-D-ish vapor product.
    (BTW, am I really the only one here who looked into the history of this company, and the people behind it? You folks really are idiots.)

    • Mod parent up.

      PS anyone interested in my revolutionary disruptive 3D printed cold fusion reactor? I'm selling 20% of the stock for only £10m to the lucky first ten applicants.

  • There are a couple of attributes which the article "somehow" forgets to mention: Strength and Rigidity! You know, those attributes that define a generic construct as a chassis . . . the thing that holds everything together under stress and protects the squishy humans inside.
    I'll hold my enthusiasm for now.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Really weird backward step (Score:3)

    by robi5 ( 1261542 ) on Thursday June 25, 2015 @06:16AM (#49983877)

    It's been long known from practice, and Finite Element Methods, that pipes of uniform diameter or thickness are suboptimal, from a uniform strength load bearing standpoint. But of course, it's easy to manufacture pipes of uniform length, and overprovision the diameter and/or thickness, i.e. waste material and add weight. Also, in traditional engineering, joins are weak links, because of disruption of uniformity and often, weaker or less uniform bonds, welding or fitting. This also adds a lot of weight.

    3D printing (or 'additive manufacturing') is meant to address these. The design is no longer constrained to uniform pipe diameters, or even, circular pipes. Also, what with the incredibly high ratio of materials that are there purely for the fitting? The whole thing looks like a traditionally welded set with all the possible known wastes, except maybe some weight savings due to more uniform joins, as obviously, welding is not needed. Or rather, the entire thing is welded from scratch (dust)! So I suspect it's a publicity stunt.

    A design that's more obvious in benefitting from 3D printing must be way more organic looking, because circular pipes of uniform diameter are a manufacturing convenience, rather than the best resulting shape that you get if you work with static and dynamic load bearing forces, impact etc. So something like this, at least on the surface, does a better job of showing load bearing structures made possible by 3D printing: http://wordlesstech.com/edag-l... [wordlesstech.com]

    • If your commentary on welding is referring to the fillets, I believe they are there to prevent a stress concentration due to the sudden change in geometry. I further suspect that the beams are non-prismatic because it is harder to model that way. If what you want to do is prove the capability of the 3D printing process, it is quicker to copy a known good design. Once they get their legs they will likely start re-thinking the basic shapes. Hopefully by then, calculation methods will have caught up enough

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by robi5 ( 1261542 )

        No, I meant that the entire thing is all weld, as you say. In fact, I found way too much sudden change in the geometry, many of them just mimicking shapes that were developed before 3D printing, e.g. how two dumb pipes are welded together in an acute angle. You should give more credit to FEM, it's not like a dark art to go beyond uniform thickness and diameter, circular shape and grid or prismatic patterns. Even 20 year old bicycle designs featured non-uniform wall thickness (around joins) and non-circular

  • Using 3D printed aluminum 'nodes' in strategic manufacturing

    Does not seem like there will be many quality jobs for the ordinary workers there, does it? Worse, they are ready to spread it to the established companies:

    also making technology available to any other companies interested

    Where are the usual concerns for workers [slashdot.org]? If only six months ago we were denouncing Amazon for using robots in warehouses [slashdot.org] (including highly-moderated threats of armed uprisings [slashdot.org]), why are we commending TFA today?

  • "The vehicle, called the Blade, has 1/3 the emissions of an electric car and 1/50 the factory capital costs of other manufactured cars."

  • For $20 to 25 thousand (depending on model) you can get a Polaris Slingshot today. With approximately the same performance numbers, except top speed.

  • The sooner autonomous cars take over the better, people crashing cars is causing the weight of cars to be fixed at very high levels.

    If cars were all autonomous they could weigh 650Kg and safety would not be a concern because crashes would be so much fewer. Heavy vehicles could be restricted to motorways and speed restricted to 20mph when in cities.

  • Obviously 3D printing is going to be an enormous blessing for all of us. It is as profound as the creation of computers in what i expect for social and economic change. Yet everyone I mention 3D printing to seems to be unaware, lost in space, or totally ignorant of what 3D printing can do. It is as if they are the ones who have been slapped silly with a mullet. I just can not understand how blind or dumb people can be when it comes to something that is sort of new.

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