Giving the article a quick read though, it does look like this isnt their real issue, since near the end it says that the final van isnt supposed to be printed, its to be made via more traditional means and the printing is just for the prototype. However, their model seems to be that they want to get other people to actually make their cars, but then sell all the manufacturing equipment and parts to those factories. Which seems dubious to me, because while they compare it to McDonald's franchising, it misses that McDonalds both operates by selling a well known brand that customers might find more appealing than an unknown restaurant, which is a benefit that a startup wont have, and that doing this enables the company to not have to run tons of locations everywhere directly, which must be located that way for a restaurant, but dont for a product like a vehicle that can be made efficiently in a few centralized locations.

Honestly what this seems more like is an attempt to make something almost like an mlm scheme but for cars; its not exactly the same, since theyre not getting their customers to rope in new ones, but they are creating a situation where what they actually sell only has appeal in that the customer is promised that they can make money from then selling to other people, thus meaning that as long as the customer is sold on this idea, the company makes money regardless of if making these pretty bad sounding cars actually turns a profit or not. I dont suspect it will work for them, given their customer base is a much more limited supply of businesses with the right amount of factory space and not just gullible individuals, and if the inefficiency of their decentralized production means that their customers close up shop, that business will dry up. They might make a bit of money at first from roping in a few companies into this scheme, but Im skeptical that will last long.