Upon the announcement of the pictured IDx concept, Nissan Vice President of Product Planning Andy Palmer said that Nissan was exploring the idea of customers being able to 3D print their own body panels for the vehicle once it hits production.

What do you think? Would you 3D print your own widebody kit for your tuner car if you could? Is this something you'd consider?

without a doubt i would print body panels and sh** if i had a 3d printer capable of doing so.

and interior sh**s too.

Cost of entry is pretty tough for now, but as with all technology, I would imagine it could get cheaper.

It would be sick to do your own carbon fiber door panels or anything of that nature.

Sounds like a cool concept to be able to design and print my own body kit but there may be some fitment issues I imagine.

It's a neat idea in theory, but in the current state of tech, I don't think it's a practical idea. I've seen what people 3D "print" in their homes and it's not very pretty, accurate or sturdy. Good materials cost quite a bit when purchased at retail for one off projects and good construction of those materials requires a nice machine. I'm not sure the 3D creation process will ever equate to the quality of current commercial molding processes. I guess it seems expensive to create parts that won't look very good up close and will likely fly off of vehicles moving faster than 30mph.

But! I still like the idea and I'd hate to see it die completely. Maybe in another decade it will be more feasible. I'm all for other people taking the plunge. It would be great to see the ideas people come up with that aren't intended for the majority. I mean, commercially sold body kits are slightly generic in a hope to appeal to the masses. People making their own stuff won't have such limitations to their imagination. "The Homer" comes to mind.

When was this announcement? I thought the iDX was like 10 years old... and completely dead according to Jalopnik.

Yeah, I'm thinking the sheer size of the machine needed to be able to print the parts would be too big. Big machines are expensive and you could probably spend that money on 15-20 body kits easily.

This is all possible now. We have setup a 3D print farm of large format printers for this exact purpose. To answer some of the questions. It terms of accuracy we use 3D scanners to scan the vehicle and then work off of scale 3D drawings, the prints are also 100% symmetrical on both sides of the vehicle, which is difficult to get right by manual mounding. The cost is comparable with custom body building if not cheaper. In terms of strength there are options, the common print in ABS is very similar in strength to the shelf bought kits if printed correctly at the correct temperatures however there has been huge development in the materials space. You can have parts printed in carbon fiber infused plastic which is stronger and lighter. There are hundreds of different options. The possibilities extend past body kit to custom air intake manifolds, custom dash boards etc, sky is the limit!

Hi Peregrine, welcome to NICO Club!

You have your own 3d print farm or you work at a company that has this? Custom plastics has been a commercial option for a long time. Personal 3D printers and having a customer (Nissan's customer; someone who bought a car from Nissan) print their own body parts is what I got out of the article. Seeing some of these 3D printers and their materials in current form makes me think it's not possible now, it's quite a way out. I think the $$$ is the limit, not the sky, but I'd like to be wrong. What do you think? Do you print large pieces in your garage at home? Is it cheaper and as strong as buying some plastic body kits online?

HI Centralcoaster33, thanks for the welcome.
My background is in software and I own a software company. My hobby is building up cars. Just over a year and a bit ago we began a project car modifying a Mercedes G wagon. We wanted to take it to the Brabus G800 spec but the body kit alone was $25k. So we decided to build a 3D printer to print the body kit. This spawned a new business The3dprintfarm.com. We have 3 printers, our largest build volume is 970 mm x 500mm x 700mm. This size enables us to print most of the kit in 1 piece, however we are busy with our 4th machine that will have a bed length of 2000mm in Length with 3 printing heads.

The parts printed are precise and very strong. We finish the parts in much the same way fiber glass is finished, with a skin of filler, primer and paint. If your concern is strength, Nasa are designing tools on Earth and emailing the print files to Astronauts to print https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/wrench-mis. 3D print materials have come a long way.

In terms of cost, it compares favorably with the goods bought online, but the customization options make it more appealing. For the G wagon kit it was less than 20% of the cost including the design cost which is a once off.

Thanks for your interest, I hope I answered some of your questions.
Regards

Ah, thanks for the feeback. That's some cool stuff and I'm glad to hear that materials and strengths are making progress. My friend built his 3d printer and it makes maybe 8"x8"x8" parts. It's neat and all, but just seems kind of janky so far. Certainly not a commercial grade of anything. It's enough to keep him busy building toy robot parts.