Low-Volume Production of 3D Printed Automotive Parts

Additive Manufacturing, a.k.a. 3D printing, is no longer a hobby technology but has become an integral part of mainstream industrial design & manufacturing.

3D printing offers manufacturers dramatically reduced development times and agile flexibility in customizing end use parts. For automotive OEM’s such as Toyota, the advantages of Additive Manufacturing are being leveraged in a myriad of use cases than span from research to product development to in-plant production support and also low-volume speciality production tasks.

Targeting a younger, performance-minded audience with its revitalized Toyota Gazoo Racing North America performance brand, Toyota has created a “one-make” racing series called the GR Cup and needed to produce a short run of race-prepared Toyota GR86 race cars based on their standard production GR86 counterpart. Engaging their Toyota Racing Development (TRD) subsidiary, performance and safety modifications were designed and over 25 different new or modified parts were quickly and cost-effectively produced with Stratasys 3D printing technology and materials to allow the manufacture of approximately 40 racing versions of the GR86.  

For low volume parts that would have previously required expensive, long lead-time tooling and manufacturing processes, Stratasys technology allowed these parts to be manufactured quickly and with minimal R&D costs. As an entry-level professional racing series, design agility and cost control are critically important in making the race-prepared GR86 affordable to teams and drivers and the fact that the entire production run of cars quickly sold out shows that Toyota’s plan is working. Toyota TRD leverages its Stratasys 3D printing capabilities across a broad range of use cases and applications.