Did you ever think that you could print out a car and drive off in it? Seems impossible? Not anymore. A technique called rapid prototyping printed out a whole car body as green as possible with no other tools or machines used. The car printed on this unique printer is called Urbee.
The engineering group is creating one of the world's most fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles. Code-named, Urbee, it is the first car ever to have its entire body 3D printed by additive manufacturing processes.
The electric / liquid-fuel hybrid reaches more than 200 mpg, highway and 100 mpg, city in U.S. gallons with either gasoline or ethanol (250 mpg highway /125 mpg city, Imperial gallons).
The car is charged overnight for just pennies from any standard home electrical outlet. Alternately, it can be charged by renewable energy from a windmill or a solar-panel array small enough to fit on top a single-car garage.
For combined city and highway use, the Urbee gets about 150 mpg and costs only 2 cents per mile. This is only about 10 percent of the fuel consumed by a typical SUV. And on the highway, it costs about 1 cent per mile, or 95 percent less than that same SUV.
"Other hybrids on the road today were developed by applying 'green' standards to traditional vehicle formats, says Jim Kor, president and chief technology officer, Kor Ecologic. "Urbee was designed with environmentally sustainable principles dictating every step of its design.
The vehicles is set to be the crowd puller at SEMA in Las Vegas as the debut of the week. The Minnesota based Stratasys had teamed up with Winnipeg based Kor Ecologic to build the first prototype of the Urbee.
The entire body including glass panel prototypes were 3D printed with an additive manufacturing process. It has been designed with environmentally sustainable principles in mind. It can use both electric and liquid fuel.