Last updated on December 4th, 2025 at 12:08 am
Better arrange to get broadband internet soon if you aren’t currently receiving such speeds: your car will probably depend on it one day!
That’s because 3-D printing is making such advances that it’s easily conceivable that we’ll all be downloading car parts in the not-so-distant future — that is, downloading the plans for creating them into our 3-D printers and having a mechanic install it all!
Indeed, the mechanic would probably just download the blueprints to his or her own 3-D printer at the shop as a part of the overall service they provide. This’ll completely cut out shipping costs — not to mention prevent delays — and of course shipping insurance, too. Imagine fabricating a hard-to-find part at the shop! In fact, no need to imagine; it’s already been done, by none other than Jay Leno himself!
3-D Fabrication of Engines Only Beginning
Car parts are just the beginning — they’re even printing body parts and, one day, NASA hopes, food like pizza. Also known as additive manufacturing by the industry (since the technology works by adding layer upon layer of material, whether ceramic, metal, or plastic), 3-D printing will absolutely change our world as technology gets ever better and costs get lower and lower. Whole cars, working firearms, almost anything you can imagine can be successfully fabricated today, though mass production will take quite a few years for various reasons. But then again, who needs that and going to the store when one could just download the plans and print out the object?
DIY Cars and Car Parts
As far as automobiles are concerned, we could be “back to the future,” revisiting a time in the ’30s when American youth all across the country literally made their own rides in a garage or backyard. Not just tinker with hotrods, souping up an existing vehicle, as in the ’50s, but actually build three-wheeled cars (hey, they weren’t competing with auto manufacturers, after all) from scratch, sourcing wheels and other parts and crafting one’s own as necessary. Thanks to personal 3-D printers, it looks like we’re in for a truly Golden Age of automobile design!
