We help our customers implement additive manufacturing wherever it can fully demonstrate its strengths. This ranges from major changes to logistics systems, detailed equipment customization and lightweight parts, to engine technology fine-tuning. 3D printing technology holds the potential to optimize the automotive production value chain and react quickly and flexibly to new trends. This potential is extremely valuable in an industry where every player, automotive manufacturer, OEM and tooling provider faces high costs and innovation pressure.
Various elements can be customized with industrial 3D printing and delivered quickly, as demonstrated by the MINI Yours Customized program. Using the 3D printing process with the EOS P 396 system and the material PA 1101, customized cockpit trims and indicator inlays were manufactured with high-quality plastic properties.
Ford uses EOS 3D printing to unite the need for security with the desire for customization. Together with the Additive Minds Consulting team, Ford succeeded in creating an innovative application for optimal protection against theft: customized, 3D printed wheel locks. The locks have a special shaft geometry that prevents unauthorized persons from removing the tires and/or rims.
Using a web-based configurator by Trinckle together with EOS 3D printing technology, the new wheel locks can be customized with a very individual design to protect the customer’s car wheels against theft. The first step is to record the car owner’s voice. The audio curve obtained from this voice is then visualized and converted into a geometry that is made into a wheel lock using 3D printing. Each lock is unique to the car’s owner and can only be opened with the correct key, improving the security of the vehicle even further.
For the Dark Side Edition of the DS 3 by DS Automobiles, a subsidiary of the PSA group, the 3D printing specialists Spartacus3D worked in close collaboration with EOS to manufacture a trim strip from titanium – quickly, in the highest quality and cost-efficiently. The part is built on an EOS M 290 from EOS Titanium Ti64.
The future of automotive technology lies in the details. Indeed, one of the key issues of our time is increasing the efficiency of an engine means that it uses raw materials more efficiently. Questions of temperature management also have a major impact on the efficiency of technical systems. 3D printing is perfect for all of these details, since structures and functionality of any complexity can be integrated directly into the parts.
Currently, spare parts are manufactured, stored and either delivered at some point during the warranty period or scrapped. EvoBus, the bus division of the Daimler group, is moving away from this expensive approach – additive manufacturing is slowly but surely taking over, and spare parts are now being manufactured on demand and locally wherever possible.
This way, industrial 3D printing is helping EvoBus GmbH to tackle their current CSP challenges and achieve more profitability to expand the company’s pioneering role.
When building tire segments, the potential of additive manufacturing truly comes to shine, for example in the snipes – the complex shapes that form the basis of the tread pattern. Additive manufacturing with metals can be used to create molded parts for tire production that would be difficult or even impossible to produce conventionally.
For automotive manufacturers and suppliers, additive manufacturing clears a path for agile development and manufacturing processes, from the initial idea to the finished part. 3D printing systems by EOS create demonstrable added value throughout the entire value chain.
We can help you with implementation
With the right 3D printing systems and our comprehensive consulting and training services, we help our customers to successfully realize their projects. This way, our customers can successfully begin or expand future-oriented production of high-precision components for engines and bodywork, as well as interior or exterior parts.
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