It’s a small step towards more personalized car interiors, but Peugeot has announced they’re selling digitally-fabricated storage inserts for their 308 model. Created by Peugeot’s Design, Product and Research & Development teams, the line consists of a sunglasses holder, a can holder and a phone/card holder, all 3D-printed from TPU on an HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer.
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The brightly-colored inserts plug into the 308’s existing dual cup holder.
“The use of TPU in a car interior is a new approach,” the company claims. The material “offers durable, strong and flexible parts. It is a perfect material for impact absorbing parts that require high elasticity and for flexible mesh-like structures. The material can be used to produce parts with a high surface quality and a very high level of detail.”
While TPU is technically recyclable, Peugeot’s press release makes no mention of whether the variant they’re using, an “Ultrasint” TPU developed by BASF and HP, is recyclable, nor if they themselves are the ones who’d recycle them.
Peugeot is one of the brands under Stellantis’ massive umbrella, so it’s possible that if the accessories are successful, we’ll see the practice spread among the brand’s stablemates.
What I’d like to see is Peugeot take a page from Ford’s book and release the CAD files of the 308’s drink holder, so that enthusiasts and entrepreneurs could design and print their own accessories.
Source: core77