3D printing is the latest trend to enter the personal market. The technology has become affordable enough for casual enthusiasts to be able to 3D print from home. Yet due to its fragile nature and slow production speeds, it has yet to find a viable place on mass markets. One company is looking to produce their own 3D printed vehicles.

X Electrical Vehicle (XEV), a firm from Italy, is growing ever closer to mass producing low-speed 3D-printed cars in China. They expect to see them on the streets by the second quarter of 2019.

Guo Xiaozheng, a senior designer at XEV said the electric car will have a top speed of 45 miles per hour, a range of around 100 miles, and will cost about $9,478. A prototype of the car, the LSEV, is currently on display at Shanghai’s China 3D-printing Culture Museum, before being exhibited at Auto China 2018 in Beijing next month.

The prototype is made primarily of a nylon material, the firm has partnered with a Shanghai-based new material developer to create a stable yet flexible material for the vehicle. Nearly all its visible parts are 3D-printed except for its windows, tires, and chassis. This allows the car to weigh just under 1000 pounds, nearly half of what a regular vehicle of that size would be.

A single factory will produce the vehicle. They will build 500 a year, slowly working towards the 7000 confirmed orders. Guo states that the vehicle will be a great benefit for services like mail delivery.