Case Study: Proterra achieves rapid scaling and 90–95% lower part costs with Carbon’s 3D Manufacturing

Electric bus maker Proterra scales rapidly with Carbon

Proterra, an electric bus maker, faced the challenge of producing thousands of different parts in low to medium volumes for varied customer orders — situations where traditional injection molding’s high tooling costs ($25k–$400k) and long lead times (three to five months) made low-volume, customer-specific parts uneconomical. To address this, Proterra worked with Carbon using Carbon’s M Series (including the M2) 3D printers, rigid polyurethane (RPU) material, and Digital Light Synthesis™ technology.

Carbon implemented 3D Manufacturing for end-use parts (e.g., a dual-purpose handle and a large dash plate), enabling rapid design iterations, integrated material/printer/software ownership, and production-ready parts in under two weeks. The result was dramatic cost and time savings: parts were produced at roughly 90–95% lower cost (handle ~$22.50 vs ~$2,500 IM estimate; dash plate ~$320 vs ~$5,000 IM estimate) and deployed quickly on buses, demonstrating Carbon’s ability to replace low-volume injection molding with faster, cheaper, and higher-quality manufacturing.

Proterra

Joshua Stewart

Director Customer Engineering