 Mark Ruport, president and CEO of Sigma Labs Inc NASDAQ:SGLB, sees todays 3D metal printing industry as akin to the nascent electric vehicle market of the mid-1990s. It was in 1996 when General Motors introduced the EV-1, and of course, that failed for a lot of different reasons, primarily because of battery life and technology and refueling, because the infrastructure wasnt there, he explained. 