Coating Solutions Enabling Advanced Automotive Technologies

By Cynthia Challener

The automotive industry is under­going a significant transformation. Conventional internal combustion engines (ICEs) are being replaced by bat­teries in electric vehicles (EVs), and driv­ers will ultimately become passengers in autonomous vehicles (AVs). Coatings have an important role to play in making these new technologies possible. Beyond their traditional jobs of protecting automobile components from corrosion, abrasion, and ultraviolet (UV) degrada­tion and providing a unique and striking appearance, automotive coatings are already providing additional func­tionality.

This includes soft-touch and sound-dampening interior surfaces and self-healing and easy-to-clean exterior surfaces. Additional performance capa­bilities are being achieved on a continual basis, with some technologies adopted from other industrial applications and others developed specifically to meet the needs of the evolving automotive sector. The future of the automotive industry will be heavily dependent on electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as autonomous vehicles, according to Christopher M. Seubert, research engineer in the Paint and Coatings Research group at the Ford Research and Innovation Center.

“As we look at the current industry transforma­tion, the focus is on CASE solutions­ connected, autonomous, shared, and elec­trified,” adds Peter Votruba-Drzal, global technical director for PPG. As compa­nies explore connected and autonomous vehicles and new, alternative power­trains, coatings need to be adapted to meet these needs, asserts David Cranfill, BASF technical director for OEMs.