Finally, A 3D-Printed Car That Doesn’t Look Like Arse

Automobiles are something of a Holy Grail when it comes to 3D printing. Unfortunately, most efforts to date have looked eccentrically quaint — which is a nice way of saying crap. Local Motors is looking to buck this trend with its pimped-out Strati electric car. Here are some photos.

The Strati originally debuted at this year’s CES, but this is the first time I’ve seen it up close and personal. Okay, so it’s still pretty eccentric — but not to the point where you’d be embarrassed to be seen driving it. It kind of looks like it was slapped together by one of the marauders from Mad Max. Albeit with a blowtorch and a bunch of Lego.


According to Local Motors, the Strati takes around 44 hours to build from scratch. The chassis is made up of hundreds upon hundreds of individual layers and is suitably thick. The whole thing is printed inside a giant 250-degree oven before being milled down and readied for on-road use.


The Strati is powered by an electric powertrain with a maximum speed of 65km/h. The rep we spoke to couldn’t tell us anything about the material’s crash absorption. Presumably it can’t be much worse than metal.


One of the coolest things about the Strati is the fact that its design was completely crowd-sourced. Thankfully, someone decided the seats shouldn’t be 3D printed — that would have made for a very painful ride.


Like the rest of the cars on the GTC showroom floor, it uses Nvidia’s Drive CX platform. This handles everything from handles everything from 3D advanced navigation to cutting-edge infotainment.


The Strati on the showroom floor was kitted out with some gaudy underbody LEDs. Because why the hell not, eh? When you drive a 3D-printed car, anything goes.

See also: Renovo Coupe: As Shiny As Electric Gets

Gizmodo traveled to GTC 2015 in San Jose, California as a guest of Nvidia.


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