China and Italy to produce world’s first 3D-printed car

Italian company, XEV, has partnered with Chinese company, Polymaker
They are going to launch the world’s first mass-produced 3D-printed electric car

The first mass-produced 3D-printed electric vehicle was launched by Polymaker, a 3D printing company based in Shanghai, and XEV Italian company at the China 3D-Printing Cultural Museum at the beginning of 2018. The car is named LSEV, or low-speed electrical vehicle.

LSEV weighs only 450kg, compared to the average car which tips the scale at about 1 300kg. Every visible part of the LSEV has been manufactured using a printer. The only parts that are not printed are the vehicle chassis, seats and glass. Due to the nature of the materials used, the company has cut the cost of the vehicle by 70%. The vehicle will reportedly have a retail price below $10 000.

With conventional vehicle manufacturing methods, the research and development phase takes around three to five years. XEV has reduced this to three to 12 months. The car takes only three days to make.

Polymaker designed the engineering plastics and solutions for surface treatment and colour used by XEV to build the vehicle. LSEV has only 57 vehicle components. A traditionally manufactured vehicle has about 2 000 parts.

The vehicle has already received over 7 000 orders from Europe. Production is expected to start on a mass scale in 2019.