Setting the Pace for Customized Electric Cars – The First BigRep PRO in China

XEV is an innovative, forward-thinking company, with a mission to provide sustainable urban mobility to everyone for a better shared future.  And additive manufacturing plays an important role in development and production of their electric cars!

Traditional methods of producing cars typically involve large, complicated moulds and tools that are not only expensive, but also part specific.  By implementing additive manufacturing and the BigRep PRO into the production line, XEV has virtually eliminated the need for limited and resource intensive tooling, resulting in a flexible and efficient manufacturing process.  3D printing has allowed for fewer components, faster technical updates and significantly reduced production cycles.  It also dramatically reduces production costs meaning the savings can be passed on to our customers.

3D PRINTING ENABLES THE CUSTOMISATION BUSINESS MODEL.

One of the key benefits of AM is customization.  And for XEV, it’s of the main benefits they provide to their customers. Thanks to the standardized fixing method between the customized parts and the car body, the 3D printed pieces will be able to be modified and changed with significantly less engineering work.

This is not very common in the automotive industry: shifting toward a more customer oriented manufacturing process. XEV is pushing the cutting edge innovation technologies and also places the individual user into the center of the focus for an exceptional user experience.

“We are working very closely with some key customers to develop their own customized version of their cars,” said Jiawei Wu, Additive Manufacturing Director at XEV

There are two layers of customization that XEV is focusing on. The first layer is the design surface customization, which can represent  individual identity or the corporations value. The second layer of customization has more profound influence for the automotive industry, XEV will be willing to develop further our modular upper body in order to fit various needs.

3D printing provides us a customer oriented process, and it gives us a lot of chance to trial different geometries. Also inside XEV’s smart manufacturing center, there is a very strong application team including professionals with good understanding of design and engineering. This team is the key intermedia connection between the customers and our smart manufacturing center.

XEV arrived at the BigRep PRO after an extensive search for the right 3D printer that would help them fulfill their mission.  For XEV, size of the printer played a huge role as did the versatility of the system and it being an open material system.

XEV is currently using the PRO for three main applications.  First, for small volume test production as they are developing a lot of customized versions of Yoyo (their electric car) components.  Second, XEV does a lot of material testing on BigRep PRO, mainly fiber reinforcement materials.  And third, XEV does some traditional application like prototypes, fixtures, some production tooling.

Try out different things and different geometries. Thanks to the size and openness of the system, XEV is able to test out and try out a lot of different designs and geometries.  The BigRep PRO is the right tool for XEV to continue innovation for the future of customization in electric cars and provide a fast, customer-oriented experience.