Electric 3D-printed car: $14,700

An electric car made using a 3D printer has been unveiled and is due to start selling next year in Asia and Europe.

The two-seater, called LSEV, takes just three days to make, says the car's manufacturer.

Now the carmaker is assembling a production line for the vehicle, which is expected to hit the market in April 2019 at a price of about $14,700.

LSEV is 1.5m high, 2.5m long and 1.3m wide — about the size of a Smart car. It weighs

450kg, has a top speed of

70km/h and can travel 150km once fully charged.

The car is the brainchild of XEV, a start-up firm from Hong Kong, which has a design centre in Italy and production bases in China.

XEV founder Lou Tik said the majority of the car was 3D-printed with three types of material: enhanced nylon, polylactic acid and rubber-like TPU. The chassis and the engine use traditional production methods.

A team of about 50 at XEV designed the car from scratch, developed special 3D printers and have produced one prototype. Six more cars would be produced before the end of July.

Tik started the project two years ago with his Italian cofounder and 3D printing director, Robert Moretti. The project had an initial $3.2 million funding after winning Horizon 2020, the EU's biggest programme for research and innovation.

XEV is aiming to make 20,000 cars by the end of next year.

Compared to conventional vehicle production, making cars with 3D printing can cut the research and development cost by 90 per cent while speeding up the production cycle by three-quarters, says Tik.

A conventional car has about 2000 components; the LSEV has 40 to 60. Tik said it took as few as three days to print one LSEV, and safety assessments conducted by his firm showed that the car was four or five times stronger than its conventional equivalents, such as Smart.

He said structural infill was added into the 3D-printed parts, which could absorb energy during impact and add strength and stiffness to the car.

Tik, who has an MA in automotive design, was previously the general manager of JAC Motors, a Chinese-Italian joint venture in Italy.