23 - Additive Manufacturing and Electric Vehicles

AM Radio

Manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs) seem to be adopting additive manufacturing (AM) more readily into production than the conventional automotive industry and other transportation segments have. This adoption is in part because of the functional and geometric possibilities that additive brings, but it is also because EVs are being made in lower quantities and represent new product platforms without existing supply chains, tooling and processes to contend with. In this episode of the AM Radio podcast, Julia Hider and I discuss various ways that AM is and could be used to advance the future of transportation based on electric vehicles.

This episode of the AM Radio podcast is brought to you by The Additive Manufacturing Conference at IMTS.

Mentioned in this episode:

• AM for Electric Vehicles microsite (gbm.media/AM4EV)
• Ways additive is being used for EVs
• The GM seat bracket and what it says about the company’s electric future
• Topology optimized components 3D printed for a car raced in the 2021 Dakar Rally
• Cobra Moto’s first-ever electric motocross bike
• Digital edition of our July/August issue, highlighting the electric bike
• Sakuu’s multimaterial 3D printing technique for manufacturing solid-state batteries
• Photocentric’s digital light processing (DLP) technique for printing battery electrodes
• How Extol produces functional prototypes and bridge production plastic parts for the EV market and others
• How GKN Additive uses polymer and metal 3D printing to support EV and other customers
• Webinar featuring an expert from Pix, developer of the “ultra skateboard chassis” for EVs (available on demand)

Additional resources:

• Webinar on addressing accelerated timelines for EVs with 3D printing (available on demand)
• On Automotive, a weekly newsletter focused on the global auto industry with frequent EV and AM content