Toyota has filed a patent application for color-changing paint, a technology that might let owners or dealerships quickly change the colours of cars.
As Toyota notes in the applying—which was published by the USA Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on March, 19, but originally filed in 2022—owners will probably want to change paint colours to maintain up with trends or simply to change things up. Dealers could also change colours to make cars easier to sell, Toyota suggests.
But as an alternative of a fancy repaint or vinyl wrap, Toyota claims to have developed paint that may alter its hues in response to heat and light-weight. As described in the applying, a automotive could be driven right into a garage bay with tunnel-like heating elements that might surround it on all sides. Because the paint surface is heated, a light-emitting “color modulator” device could be omitted the paint surface to finish the transformation.
The colour modulator, which could possibly be controlled by a human operator or a robot, Toyota suggests, would essentially serve because the controller for this process. It could communicate with a distant server in addition to temperature sensors embedded within the vehicle’s bodywork to find out the proper settings for a selected color, in line with the applying.
Toyota color-changing paint patent image
Toyota admits that it is not the primary automaker to experiment with color-changing paint. As noted by the automaker in the applying, BMW demonstrated something similar at CES 2022 on its iX electric SUV.
Based on the electrophoretic technology utilized in e-readers, the color-change effect utilized by BMW was created by tens of millions of microcapsules suspended in an exterior wrap. An electrical current caused pigments to flow into inside these microcapsules, changing the outside from white to gray to black on the push of a button.
Toyota’s version seems a bit different, because it doesn’t use an exterior wrap as a medium. Whether that makes it more prone to reach production than the BMW design (which was for demonstration purposes only) stays to be seen.
This Article First Appeared At www.motorauthority.com
