Additive Manufacturing Special Report - November 2023 - 3

The Czingers, father
Kevin and son Lukas.
First deliveries of the
21C are set for Q4
2023, and production
is limited to 80 cars.
Base price is
$2 million.
Lukas Czinger: For the Blade, we were using AlSi10Mg,
which is your standard printable aluminum alloy. Today,
we are printing our own material, which is a lot
stronger, a lot more durable - and importantly, has
much higher elongation for crash. Using AlSi10Mg, I
don't think you'd be able to print a crash-worthy
structure.
Additive-manufactured
rear subframe of the
Czinger 21C.
And on the assembly side, we've gone from
essentially a concept, bonding - and doing it
manually - to a fully robotic-based, fixture-less
assembly process.
SAE: What OEMs are you working with today?
Czinger: Aston Martin is now a large customer and I
was just in the U.K. and I got to watch our rear frame
structure. Visualize 16 large, printed parts assembled
into the rear frame of the vehicle - installed on their
assembly line into a customer car.
We also work with Mercedes AMG doing large
structures. We have about seven other large European
OEMs for which we are doing everything from control
arms to front frames and rear frames. For some of
them, we are even looking at the full chassis now.
We also work in aerospace and defense doing
surveillance-drone structures. General Atomics is the
first company we started working with. For something
like a small UAS (Unmanned Aerial System), instead of
taking years to develop a design, [using additive
manufacturing] takes months, and instead of taking
weeks to manufacture by laying out carbon fiber, we
take hours to assemble.
ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING SPECIAL REPORT
SAE: What are the key advantages of DAPS?
Czinger:The one at the very top is we'll make a structure that can
absorb crash energy as well as the structure the OEM is currently
using - but ours is thirty- to forty-percent lighter.
Time savings is a critical advantage. We don't have a prototype
process. You're never doing soft tooling or a mockup. Our first
unit is a production unit. Time to get that first part, even for a
complex structure, is six to eight months; OEMs are used to 18 to
30 months for chassis development. Lower development costs
NOVEMBER 2023 3
FROM TOP: MARC WEISBERG; CZINGER VEHICLES
Additive Manufacturing Special Report - November 2023

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