Divergent Technology gets an investment from Hexagon AB.
Hexagon AB, the 23,000-employee $4.3 billion-conglomerate, has made another mind-boggling investment.
Five years ago, they acquired MSC Software and its NASTRAN, once the biggest name in simulation software,
for $834 million. This time, it’s a $100 million investment in Divergent
Technologies, an automotive startup with a 3D printing story and a
sustainability theme that gets beaucoup attention from car fanatics (like
us) for its menacing, thousand-plus horsepower supercar.
“I delivered a message of hope for a sustainable future by naming the culprit aloud: all of us,” said Hexagon
president and CEO Ola Rollén at HxGN LIVE Global 2022, the company’s annual user conference. “While the steep climb in emissions over the last 30 years happened on our watch, none of us want to go down in history as the CO2 Generation – the one that polluted and warmed this planet. For that reason, Hexagon continues to invest in disruptive and unconventional technologies that make giant leaps forward.”
from their use.
Hexagon makes this investment on Divergent on the basis of
sustainability but not in the way one would expect, investing in an electric
vehicles manufacturer. Divergent’s supercar, the Czinger 21C, is not all
electric. It is a hybrid, with an ethanol burning internal combustion engine and
electric motors. But according to Hexagon and Divergent, the Earth has more to
gain if we made vehicles, electric or otherwise, sustainably.
“Manufacturing a car’s parts has a much greater impact on the environment than the car’s exhaust emissions, which is why new manufacturing concepts will win,” says Rollén. “We must find ways to empower car makers with more efficient and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes that minimize material usage and total system cost. Incremental steps are simply not enough to save the planet.”
Who is Divergent?
Divergent’s Czinger 21C (named after founder Kevin Czinger) is a rocket sled of a car
that gets up to 60 mph in a mere 1.9 seconds. That’s an acceleration of 1.4 g’s, a
hair better than a Tesla Model X Plaid, which accomplishes the same feat in 1.99 seconds.
The Czinger 21C go-fast look is enhanced with a cockpit and canopy like
a fighter plane, with a single passenger seated behind the driver. Power from and internal combustion engine and twin electric motors totals 1,233 hp. The light frame construction help keep it weigh in at 2,756 pounds –
just a hundred pound more than a two-door Mini Cooper.
Divergent and Hexagon have picked up a the sustainability theme, though it may not be immediately
apparent how selling 80 supercars at $1.7 million each will have a positive effect on the Earth.
The answer, according to Mr. Czinger, is the process.
Czinger 21C supercar. (Picture from Divergent Technology video).
Key to the manufacture of the vehicles is the DAPS (Divergent Adaptive Production System) that uses 3D printed nodes and carbon fiber tubes as opposed to stamped steel common to traditional automotive chassis. The
DAPS frame can be put together without big, expensive metal forming facilities.
In fact, a “microfactory” with DAPS can be created for as little as $5 million,
according to Divirgent.
Divergent Technologies was founded in 2014 and is based in Torrance in Southern California, near Los Angeles.
The company
raised $160 million in April of this year and has a $80 million line of credit
making a total of $352 million in funding according to Crunchbase.
Divergent has partnered with SLM Solutions Group, maker of massive
metal 3D printing systems, in 2017, following a “development partnership” with Altran the year before.
