Nothing says “Welcome to the Future” like a 3D-printed runabout vehicle with a hybrid engine, three wheels, speeds of up to 68 mph, and capacity to carry up to 1,200 lbs. The Urbee 2 is the result of Jim Kor’s dream for a modern, sustainable vehicle that will someday revolutionize the way that we commute. The exterior’s lightweight construction of ABS plastic allows for a minimum amount of drag and fuel required to operate the car, and it’s stronger and more easily manipulated than steel. Able to hold two passengers, the Urbee could very well be the next big thing in urban transportation.
Jim Kor has long been involved in engineering efficient, ecologically-minded vehicles. Through his firm, Kor Ecologic , he has designed tractors and buses, and now the company has set its sights on commercial commuters. Working with RedEye, an on-demand 3D printing facility, the team behind the Urbee used ABS plastic and Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) to fabricate an extremely precise, light, and strong body for the car. The printers can spray polymer down to the microscopic layer, creating a whole 10-foot car in 2,500 hours, continuing automatically even when the engineers have packed up and gone home. The materials and machines let the framework avoid the need for the connecters, nuts, and bolts required for traditional cars made from sheet metal and can construct parts out of large single pieces of plastic. This translates into a much lighter unit with a 0.15 coefficient of drag, and far less fuel to move the 1,200 lb vehicle.
The engine and the chassis will still be made from metal, and the max 10 horsepower engine is still in development. Most of the city driving (up to 40 mph) will be powered by a 36-volt electric motor, and higher speeds will be achieved by a diesel engine that can potentially be run on ethanol. For safety, the team says they want the car to pass the same technical regulations found at Le Mans, and the design puts a metal roll cage around the driver similar to those found in NASCAR. In most states and countries, the designers foresee the Urbee being registered as a motorcycle, due to its weight and size. Currently, Kor’s team is using crash simulation software to fine tune the safety features, and wait for more funding to complete the testing.
The Urbee already has 14 orders at $50,000 each. When more cash comes in, the head engineer plans on taking the most recent prototype across the country on only 10 gallons of pure ethanol. They hope to get Guinness involved as a way to stir interest and set a new standard for how the world moves.
Via Wired
Ethenol is alcahol, not a fossil fuel. If you were to grow a high sugar crop and ferment them yourself, that would be more envirnmentally consious than a pure electric car, which uses not only electicity, but large batteries. Both are environmental hazards. As for why the urbee might be better in other ways: what other car can you drive coast to coast without stopping? I’d take an urbee over a tesla any day.
Or you could buy a 40 kWh battery Tesla Model S and use no ethanol, have more room, and get it in 4 to 6 months for the same price.
@Noneya Biznazz “2500 hours each? Thats insane. Thats 104 days per car. Think about that. It’ll take 4 years just to put out the 15 or so for those already wanting one.”
Rally misses the point of the future applications of 3D Printing. You statement assumes there is only 1 3D printer working on 1 car at a time. What if there was a group of 2500 printers for example, the possibilities are endless using division of labor.
As for the inclusion of a combustion engine, in till a more portable, safe, permanent, reliable, and accessible technology becomes available; liquid fuel will be the standard for mobile power generation. Currently there is only two other options in that category, and the idea of every one driving around with a nuclear reactor freaks me out or getting stranded because the battery is dead and it is a cloudy day does not sound fun either.
@Noneya Biznazz, I think Pebble was referring to the consumption of fossil fuels in the production of ethanol, higher levels of VOC released than previously thought. Then there\’s all the fuels required to grow the corn itself. Still a valid issue that would need to be adressed.
And in response to Pebble, below, ethanol isn’t a fossil fuel. Its basically alcohol made from corn. It doesn’t come from underground. Please read and learn something before spilling your hippie juice all over the future.
The fuel isn’t the problem. Energy storage is the problem.
2500 hours each? Thats insane. Thats 104 days per car. Think about that. It’ll take 4 years just to put out the 15 or so for those already wanting one.
Pretty cool.. until a F-350 reverses on top of you.
Kinda wonder what kind of batteries they’re considering to propel this threewheeler. Air-Li or MITs porous Li wouldn’t be bad ideas. As the lightweight is already innate to it’s form it shouldn’t flaw it’s design carrying far too many basic Li batteries.If they make it radio free they could use that whole top window as solar semitranlucent glass to charge the car(slightly)maybe 2-5% daily. Brings me back to the cork car a bit, I guess we’ll see when they hit the prototype stage.
Here’s the problem: the issue isn’t that it uses fossil fuel MORE efficiently…it’s that it uses it at all! Seriously, innovation is NOT simply trying to find a better way to use an already faulty and failing system; innovation is the process of completely flipping a concept, efficient is no longer good enough. What we truly need is EFFECTIVE! And using fossil fuels, no matter how efficiently, is still…NOT EFFECTIVE!