Planetizen Newswire
Keep up with essential planning news and commentary, delivered to your inbox every Monday and Thursday.
The 3D-Printed Car: Passion Project Becomes Reality
Light-weight, durable cars are the next frontier of 3D printing. Meet Urbee, the hybrid that, according to its inventor, will be the VW Bug of our century.
Imagine an economy car with only 50 individual light-weight but durable component parts that has the potential to reach 70 mph and make a cross-country trip from New York to California on just one 10-gallon tank of fuel.
Urbee, Manitoba-based Jim Kor's invention, may just fit this model.
The car's design includes a metal internal combustion engine, an electric motor and frame. Polymer-based, the latter, is 3D-printed over a 3-month period.
Kor is using RedEye's 3D printing facilities in Eden Prairie, MN to produce the car.
According to Kor, 3D printing provides design and budget flexibility because it reduces the number of component parts while not compromising complexity of form. Unlike sheet metal, which comes in uniform thickness, printed thermoplastics vary their thickness to provide strength where needed, while reducing the overall weight of the car's body.
Published on Monday, February 11, 2013 in
- Dollar Stores and Grocery Stores
- Prop 13 on the Ballot in California—Just Not the Prop 13 Everyone's Worried About
- TOD and Zero-Emission Trains: Can You Guess Where the Controversy Is?
- The Leaning Tower of Dallas Is Too Good for This World
- Neighborhood Preference Splits on Partisan Lines
- Developer Sues L.A. After Area Planning Commissioners Reject Multi-Family Project
- Zoning Code Update Makes the Nightly News in Cleveland
- Transit-Friendly Makeover for Downtown Seattle Street
- Lego Neglects Space for Bike Lanes
- The Smart Cities Revolution Happened, but Cities Were Left Out of Loop
- Latest San Francisco Bike Battlefront: Valencia Street
- California's Piecemeal Progress on Housing Production
- Bus Stop Consolidation Improving On-Time Performance in Pittsburgh
- San Antonio's Housing Equity Crisis Traced to Planning Roots
- No Late-Night Tacos in My Backyard
- $11 Billion: Estimated Cost of Replacing the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway With a Tunnel
- New Orleans 'Smart City' Program Would Install Video Cameras in Public
- What Determines the Public Health Outcomes of Cities?
- Controversial Development Site in Cupertino Compounds Legal Controversy
- Report: Transit Ridership Reaches Lowest Levels Since the 1970s
