Imagine a future where instead of buying a car, you print and assemble it in your own home. The Divergent Blade is an example of that future. Assembled completely from 3D-printed "nodes" and a optional carbon fiber skin, the Divergent Blade radically reduces the materials, energy use, pollution, and cost of car manufacturing. This supercar is the first of its kind, combining a large power to weight ratio (2 times better than that of the Bugatti Veryon) and an acceleration of 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds, faster than that of the McLaren P1.Divergent says that its node-based chassis ecosystem could just as easily be used to build a pickup truck as a sports coupe. It's not hard to imagine those hypothetical start-ups using the simplified building-block chassis method to quickly design vehicles of all different sizes and styles.
The body on the prototype is carbon fiber, but could be made out of metal plates or really anything due to the body not being a structure. These could be made for less than $1,000.
Divergent outsourced the guts of his car instead of building their own, buying a custom gasoline and compressed natural gas engine from another manufacturer. The engine is small— four cylinders and 700 horsepower—but in such a light vehicle, it delivers supercar performance and is light on emissions. They estimate that it has less than half the carbon footprint of the Tesla Model S. However, before these cars can come into public use, Divergent must prove that their cars can conform to strict automotive safety standards.
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