Unlike a mass-produced car, you may choose to custom-design nearly every aspect of your car, from its skin to its shape.
(The company currently has one in Phoenix, Arizona, but it promises more locations are on the way.) The most popular design, usually decided by votes, will be built into a functional, one-of-a-kind vehicle at one of Local Motors' micro factories. Members of the Local Motors community submit car design ideas, or help refine others' design-a process dubbed “co-creation” by the company. Local Motors is pioneering a concept called open-source automotive design. You'll run up against licensing restrictions, according to Siemens PLM Software officials.) (But don't expect to be able to pass files between commercial versions of Solid Edge and Design1. Files supported by Design1 include Parasolid, STEP, IGES, SolidWoks, Inventor, and Pro/ENGINEER. The two companies are also delivering a free 3D viewer for the Local Motors community, which will let members exchange and view project files in Siemens PLM Software's lightweight JT format.
The entire global community will then be able to purchase Design1 subscriptions starting Jan 1, 2012. The trial is being made available now through the end of the year to select Local Motors community members. In today's announcement, Siemens PLM Software explains, “Local Motors and Siemens PLM Software are making available, for a limited time, a downloadable trial of Solid Edge Design1. The trimmed down version of Solid Edge is dubbed Design1, available for a subscription fee of $19.95 per month in a node-locked configuration (to be installed on a single machine) to those who're involved in Local Motors projects. Siemens PLM Software is launching a new edition of Solid Edge, created exclusively for members of Local Motors. An unorthodox automotive manufacturer and a new CAD software distribution model are about to come together.