A newcomer to the performance automotive scene has been setting speed records this summer with its 3D-printed hypercar. On Aug. 26, the 21C, made by Los Angeles-based company Czinger, set a lap record on California’s Laguna Seca track for production cars—meaning those sold to customers and not just used on the track. A month earlier, the Czinger 21C claimed the production record on Austin’s F1 circuit, and shattered the production car hillclimb record at the Goodwood Festival of Speed motorsport, an annual U.K.-based motorsport event.
“We call it ‘the summer of records,’” says Czinger’s co-founder, COO, and president, Lukas Czinger. “It’s been a lot of fun.”
While these record-breaking performances are impressive, Lukas and his father, Kevin Czinger, who is the company’s CEO, have far grander ambitions than just building fast cars. The 21C is a showcase of what’s possible using parent company Divergent’s end-to-end design and manufacturing platform, which integrates artificial intelligence, advanced material science, and 3D printing. Together, these technologies allow the company to streamline design to use as few materials as possible.
Their strategy is already paying off. This summer, Divergent, which is also led by the father-son duo, added McLaren and Bugatti to the list of luxury automakers it will design and manufacture components for. But Divergent hopes that its manufacturing platform will soon “trickle down” from the ultra high-end to mass-market vehicles, and eventually aerospace and other industries. “If we do our job right,” Lukas Czinger says, “’it will be the biggest manufacturing system in the world in 10 years.”
It’s not the first time a new American automaker has used a high-tech sports car to make its mark, with the ultimate aim of bringing that same cutting-edge technology to the mainstream. In 2008, Tesla began shipping the Roadster in small quantities, part of CEO Elon Musk’s “master plan” to use luxury vehicle profits to finance more affordable models. Divergent’s path has some similarities, albeit with a different end game. Rather than selling mass-market vehicles itself, Divergent hopes that its end-to-end system will be used to help other companies both design and manufacture cars more sustainably.
The Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPS), Divergent’s software and hardware solution which was used to design and build the Czinger 21C, helps make lighter, more aerodynamic vehicles. This has obvious benefits when you want to break speed records, but it could also help mass-market automakers cut costs while being more sustainable. “If you save 20 to 30% of a vehicle’s chassis mass, if you multiply that by hundreds of millions of cars,” says Lukas Czinger, “that is a massive impact.”
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These savings accrue across different stages of production. For example, human designs are refined leveraging the company’s AI models to identify potential savings. Lukas Czinger says this is what enabled them to make the 21C’s chassis and suspension “perfectly efficient.” In other words, you couldn’t take away a single gram of material more and have it still meet the demands of driving. Meanwhile, DAPS uses 3D printing, which adds material layer by layer with minimal waste. Contrast this with machining components from a block of metal, then recycling or throwing away the scraps, and it’s easy to see how savings add up.
DAPS has another trick up its sleeve. A typical car factory makes only a handful of models because the equipment, such as the molds used to make the chassis, are specific to only those vehicles. By contrast, the 3D printing process used in the Czinger 21C’s production is “product independent,” meaning a single factory could be used to make “200, 300, a thousand” different products, Lukas Czinger says.
That will make it easier for newer players to work with Divergent to produce limited runs of new designs for niche markets without investing in a factory. As the technology becomes more affordable, Divergent aims to replace large-scale in-house manufacturing with a new model where companies focus on design and outsource production to its adaptable factories. “Just like with the cloud,” says Lukas Czinger, referring to how businesses now rely on Amazon or Microsoft for computing rather than maintaining their own servers, “you’ll see dozens of Divergent facilities worldwide producing for all industries.”
Though, for now, its technology is the exclusive realm of those willing to pay “bomb prices.” Czinger expects to finish its limited run of 80 21Cs in the first half of 2026. Each one starts at $2 million.
As the “summer of records” wraps up, the company faces its next challenge: translating success on the track into market traction. But Kevin and Lukas believe their relationship gives them an edge. “There’s a level of politics when you’re building a large business,” Lukas says. “We don’t have any of that.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-23 08:27:00
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