World’s first car made by 3D printer unveiled in Chicago

What’s being billed as the world’s first car made by a 3D printer was unveiled in Chicago last week. The Strati, a two-seater “neighborhood” electric car with a range of 120 miles and a maximum speed of 40 mph, was assembled live in front of attendees at the International Manufacturing Technology Show. According to Local Motors, the Phoenix, Arizona-based company behind the Strati, it took just 44 hours to build.

Today, the best Detroit or Germany can do is 10 hours on a [production] line, after hundreds of years of progress.

John Rogers, Local Motors CEO

Local Motors’ mission “is to manufacture faster, but also more democratically,” Scientific American magazine reports. The company plans to start selling Stratis for $18,000 to $30,000 later this year. Local Motors CEO John Rogers said that eventually, they’ll be built while customers wait. 3D printing has long been the darling of tech junkies, engineers and doctors—there are stories of using 3D printers to create vertebrae, mini-castles and even makeup, but they have yet to become common in U.S. households.

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