It is like watching the Phoenix — in a modern “real-time” rebirth — rise from its mythical ashes. Or like watching David — if time-lapse photography had existed back when Michelangelo worked his magic — emerge from a mere block of stone. In one contiguous, if only slightly monotonous, 44-hour melding of computer, plastic and laser beams, a company called Local Motors “3D-printed” a car.
Local Pricing & Incentives
Yes, an entire automobile. And not just a cute little plastic model of a car or an artist’s rendering of what a future car might look like, but a complete, full-sized, operational automobile. Having captivated onlookers by printing the basic carcass at the 2014 International Manufacturing Technology Show, Local Motors then added tires, headlights and the powertrain of a Renault Twizy electric car and drove its creation, the Strati, off the floor of Chicago’s McCormick Place convention centre.