Application of Additive Manufacturing in the Automobile Industry: A Mini Review

The automobile industry is recognized as one of the most influential sectors shaping global economies, societies, and individual lifestyles. Therefore, fierce competition among different companies is continuously undergoing, and special attention is focused on innovations to improve competitiveness. In the past several years, additive manufacturing (AM) has emerged as an innovative technology in applications in the automobile industry with significant advantages over traditional techniques. As a result, increasing efforts have been paid to combining AM technology with the development of the automobile industry. Currently, many automobile players are optimizing their industrial layout by incorporating innovative AM techniques, and meanwhile, a lot of research progress has been achieved in order to meet the market demand. This article aims at presenting a timely review to conclude the recent advances in the application of AM techniques in the automobile industry, focusing on the available AM techniques, printable materials, and industry applications, based on which the advantages and disadvantages of each technique and material system are discussed in order to reveal the current application situation. The current research gaps and challenges are also outlined to indicate future research opportunities. Hopefully, this work can be useful to related researchers as well as game players in the industry of this field.