The company XponentialWorks, a venture, innovation and advisory company reinventing additive manufacturing announced this week a project with Arcimoto, Inc. to design and fabricate lightweighted components for Arcimoto’s Fun Utility Vehicle®. XponentialWorks partnered with Arcimoto to lightweight the suspension of its Fun Utility Vehicle, boosting performance and overall ride quality.
The goal was reducing cost, improving performance, efficiency, and making the vehicle more environmentally friendly. If successful, the new parts take the place of heavier, regularly manufactured parts and may enable Arcimoto’s electric vehicles to drive farther distances on a single charge, improve acceleration, and deliver better handling – all while parts costs are reduced during production.
Lightweighted parts are:
- Rear swing arm: Regular part to be lightweighted by up to 34%;
- Knuckle: Regular part to be lightweighted by up to 36%;
- Upper control arm: Regular part to be lightweighted by up to 52%;
- Brake pedal: Regular part to be lightweighted by up to 49%;
We are very excited to work with Arcimoto to leverage our technological know-how to make this incredible vehicle even more outstanding,(…), The entire redesign, from concept to parts, took only four weeks, further demonstrating how 3D printing technology is completely changing how we design and manufacture products.”
-Avi Reichental, founder of XponentialWorks
“With the powerful combination of AI-generated designs and ultra-fast 3D printing processes, we are now able to create complex geometric structures which substantially lightweight vehicles, improve performance, lower production costs and save on battery power. We welcome this opportunity with Arcimoto to provide their drivers with the best possible in-vehicle experience,” said Reichental, and added, “In this new age of industry 4.0 manufacturing, no one company can do it all alone. This project demonstrates the power of curating relationships and building joint innovation programs that pool together resources and expertise from complementary organizations to create practical tractable products in record time.”
The Technology used for Lightweighting: Design & Additive Manufacturing
ParaMatters’ CogniCAD software (Artificial Intelligence and computer generated design) uses AI to create designs with engineers by simply entering design goals and materials parameters. The AI can explore nearly infinite design permutations based on the design concept, and provide an optimal solution to lightweight parts. CogniCAD can also automatically combine all the different parts into one homogeneous assembly instead of creating multiple parts that need to be manufactured – a time consuming activity that also leads to heavier components. Arcimoto FUV’s lightweighted parts can then be 3D printed to produce the final product.
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Business Wire, Arcimoto Pure Electric Fun Utility Vehicle Lightweighted Using XponentialWorks Generative Design and Additive Manufacturing Capabilities https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200121005639/en/Arcimoto-Pure-Electric-Fun-Utility-Vehicle-Lightweighted, published on Jan21, re-edited and published by João Andrade on Jan22 2020;
Featured Image & Article Photo:
Youtube The Arcimoto FUV: Joy Meets Ride (00:06s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLu-GaI_NQ_LKN4rj77Zc3d-08TmFczx2f&time_continue=7&v=LxbvFWK-1_U&feature=emb_logo published on Nov14;
