Local Motors

An ambitious company that set out to change how cars are built looks to have reached the end of the road.

Does a bus really need a driver? IBM and crowd-sourcing automotive outfit Local Motors don't think so, as their new Olli concept recently demonstrated on the roads near Washington, D.C. ALSO SEE: Deployable mobile tire spikes could stop you in your tracks Calling Olli a concept might be a bit...

Local Motors is keen to bring 3D printing into larger focus within the automotive world. Certain automakers or component manufacturers might make a part this way, but Local Motors is looking to make a nearly complete car using 3D printing. Recently, Local Motors showed us this was possible by way...

Last year, boutique company Local Motors announced a contest to design a 3D printed car. And now, Automotive News (subscription required) is reporting that the company says it will have a version of the winning design, dubbed the Strati, available to consumers in 2017. According to the Local Motors...

The Local Motors LITECAR Challenge seeks radical new ways to reduce vehicle weight.

America's Local Motors made headlines with its last major project, the crowdsourced off-road Rally Fighter, and now it's set to inspire driving enthusiasts anew with a new lightweight sports car. Not that the car will be designed in-house, of course—once again, it's up to skilled designers...

A new street/track car is coming, and it’s coming from the team that brought us the awesomeness that is the Rally Fighter. Focusing their powers of open-source construction and outside-the-box thinking, the Local Motors crew will move from the dirt to the pavement with a modular car designed...

Local Motors will print a car based on the winning design at the International Manufacturing Technology Show this fall.

Steel stamping and production lines? That's so last-year--what you really want is a 3D printed car. MUST SEE: 1969 Mustang Shelby GT500 Cobra Jet Found In Pristine Condition: Auction The concept is nothing new, but finding a printer big enough to deal with car panels isn't an easy tax. It's one...

Local Motors has taken its open collaboration, local-building approach to making vehicles and made it even more fun to participate--by giving users an online configurator for its Rally Fighter off-road vehicle. The company's approach is a unique one, having designed the Rally Fighter through an...

In September, we told you that BMW was partnering with automotive crowdsourcing expert Local Motors for an urban automotive technology design contest. The idea was simple: use Local Motors’ Forge community to address challenges faced by urban drivers in the coming years. As The Forge has...

Last August we brought you news that Domino’s Pizza was collaborating with Local Motors, creator of the Rally Fighter, to crowdsource the “Ultimate Delivery Vehicle” for Domino’s wheel-shaped, tasty edible wares. Besides 15 minutes of fame, the contest promised to pay...

Over the years, BMW has been an industry leader in the development of automotive technology. In 1972, BMW was the first to use a radar-based distance warning in its BMW Turbo concept; in 1980, BMW became the first automaker to collect telemetry data in racing, and in 1994 BMW introduced the...

The open-source minds behind the Local Motors Rally Fighter have joined forces with Domino's pizza to conceive the Ultimate Delivery Vehicle. And you (or people like you) are the brains that will imagine it. Domino's is "reinventing the way pizza is delivered, and [they] want your help," according...

Local Motors is moving ahead with its open-source production model.

The XC2V (Experimental Crowd-derived Combat-support Vehicle) Design Challenge is underway, and it's perhaps one of the weirdest--and coolest--military competitions in recent memory. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is behind the $10,000 challenge to develop a next-generation...

Freakishly shaped, crowd-designed, and "open source," the Local Motors Rally Fighter is unique even among the world of purpose-built dirt bashers. It's also a ton of fun to watch as it does its thing. You've already seen the Rally Fighter get freaky in the dirt, but it's up to its antics again...

"Open source" is a phrase not too many people outside the computer software world understand. But it's a concept Local Motors is trying to bring to the automotive world, with their first open-sourced vehicle, the Rally Fighter. This video previews its SEMA appearance. How does open source figure...

The first-ever Creative Commons rally facer looks impressive in action.

For anyone unfamiliar with Local Motors, it’s a start-up based in Massachusetts that specializes in small-scale automotive manufacturing and design with a skew towards development of efficient vehicle technologies. Over the past year the company has run a number of design competitions for...