American motor vehicle manufacturer Local Motors recently unveiled a fully 3D-printed electric car. The 3D printed car has a 2+2 body style and the company plans to sell the car in 2016.
According to Fox News, the 2+2 car body design was submitted by Local Motor's crowdsourcing community. It was the brainchild of mechanical engineer Kevin Lo who envisions a fully transformable sports car incorporating designs from a track day machine and a beach buggy. Lo's design was picked from more than 60 submitted entries.
According to Ubergizmo, Local Motors plans to manufacture the car in its facility located at Knoxville, Tennessee. Local Motors also plans to add more manufacturing facility in order to cater production demands once the car hits the market.
The 3D-printed car from Local Motors will be released as a low-speed neighborhood vehicle and will fetch a price tag between $18,000 and $30,000. Local Motors added that the company plans to release a version of the car that is highway legal and may hit the market before the end of 2016.
In addition to its revolutionary approach in car manufacturing, Local Motors will also introduce a new business model built around the concept of micro-factories. This means that a customer who wants to purchase the car will take part in some of its assembly process. Following this business model puts them in the custom-built kit car category and in turn exempt them from several government regulations that causes several low volume car manufacturers to gain traction in the United States.
Local Motors said that its 3D-printed cars have few components which means that building one will only take a couple of days to be finished.