Would You Drive an Electric Car That Came Out of a Printer?

Currently, the Arizona-based company is hard at work on creating the first lineup of 3D-printed electric cars. Before you go scoffing at the idea of driving around town in a printed vehicle, Local Motors has already shown that its 3D-printed vehicles can work in the real world and the concept looks much better than most vehicles on the road today.

John B. Rogers, CEO and co-founder of Local Motors, stated: "At Local Motors, we are hellbent on revolutionizing manufacturing. Car manufacturers have been stamping parts the same way for more than 100 years. We now have the technology to make the process and products better and faster by linking the online to the offline through DDM. This process will create better and safer products, and we are doing exactly that."

Community contest winner, Kevin Lo, is responsible for the radical design of the project named Reload Redacted—Swim/Sport. His design was chosen by a panel of independent adjudicators, which happened to include Jay Leno, who praised the design. The concept of the vehicle is simple, but revolutionary. A 3D-printed flexible chassis will serve as the base, while customers can choose between different body styles. Local Motors plans to debut an electric vehicle in the first quarter of 2016 that customers can actually purchase.