3D Printing in Automotive Industry / 3D打印在汽车行业的未来

This photo was taken in a tour of Autodesk’s gallery in San Francisco.
As a leader in the intersection of construction and techology, Autodesk has been working on 3D printing these years. This is a sample of their 3D printing vehicle.

这张照片拍摄于Autodesk公司旧金山总部的展示厅。
Autodesk作为科技工程界执牛耳者，近年在3D打印领域做了不少研究。这是他们做的3D打印汽车的模型。

More and more people believe that 3D printing technology could transform the way how products are designed and manufactured.

In the automotive industry, 3D printing technology has been adopted to produce rapid prototyping. Industry players are also looking to manufacture spare parts with 3D printing, which has been recognized as one way to produce cleaner, lighter and safer products with short manufacture cycle and lower cost.

Deloitte has done some researches on the current stage and forecast on the 3D printing technology in auto industry. I think the graph they made is very clear and informative.

3D打印作为科技热词也红火了好一阵子。越来越多人坚信3D打印技术能带来一场新的工业革命。

在汽车行业，3D打印目前被用来做快速原型。行业领导者们也正在研究用3D打印技术生产汽车配件。有了3D打印技术，厂商将不再被材料和供应链所限制，可以用更低的成本生产出更轻更环保更安全的产品。

下图是德勤对3D打印技术的总结和展望。可见绿色部分，也就是目前的应用主要还是些简单部件和边角料，例如气门、减震器、冷却管等。而蓝色部分则开始涉及核心部件例如引擎、轮子等。

Source: Deloitte Analysis

However, challenges exist to achieve the economy of scale. For example, the volume of production is still low, materials which can be used for 3D printing are limited, and there are talent shortage on the market.

然而，跟很多新技术一样，3D打印从概念到生产还面临着很多挑战。例如，目前的生产量仍然很小，能用的材料有限，3D打印人才短缺等等。

What's your opinion of 3D printing in auto industry? Have you seen any application with 3D printing?
Please feel free to comment.

对于3D打印在汽车行业的未来，你怎么看呢？你见过哪些3D打印在实际生产中的应用？欢迎留言讨论。