We’ve talked about electric motorcycles this year more than ever before and we’re not about to stop soon.
German additive manufacturing company BigRep has unveiled what they call the world’s first 3D printed motorcycle, dubbed the Nera E-bike. The Nera project was developed alongside BigRep’s innovation division led by Marco Mattia Cristofori and Maximilian Sedlak.
If you’re not impressed yet, I want to tell you that the only non-3D printed things on the bike are the electric components. Everything else, even the rhomboid wheel rims and the flexible bumpers have been 3D-printed.
“Nera illustrates the massive benefits that 3D-printing offers for the production of end-use parts, particularly for batch sizes between lot size one [small quantities manufactured in a single production run] to small series, by reducing lead times and costs, optimising supply chains and limiting dependency on supplier networks.”
The bike has a fully electric engine that is embedded in the back rim and features an embedded sensor technology. It has a forkless steering with eight pivot joints, embedded LED lights whose reflectors are also 3D-printed and the hexagonal structure allows for load-bearing elements.
The motorcycle is not available for sale, at least the company has not made any statements about that, but it does stand as a testament to the firm’s ability to use new materials and techniques to create innovative, functional designs that we can apply to more areas in our life than we ever thought possible.
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