The Chinese automotive market continues to expand - surface coatings face new challenges

In recent years, with the continuous expansion of the automotive market, especially the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the demand for high-performance and high safety automotive parts has been increasing. In 2024, the sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 12.866 million units, a year-on-year increase of 35.5%, with a market share of over 40%. In addition, with the deep transformation of the global automotive industry, intelligent driving technology has gradually become the main driving force for innovation in the automotive industry. With the transformation of the automotive industry towards intelligence and networking, this directly drives new demand for coatings on vehicles and components!

MF Material Coating has visited more than ten automotive OEMs. Currently, OEMs that are transitioning towards intelligence and electrification have a constantly emerging demand for vehicle coatings. The editor has compiled seven new coating requirements brought about by the intelligent networking of automobiles, which can help enterprises seize demand and win opportunities. Specifically, as follows:

1.Rare earth insulation coating

Description:Rare earth insulation functional materials have basic pigment functions in the visible light range, but have good reflective properties in the infrared light range. They can reflect the thermal radiation in sunlight back into the atmosphere, thereby reducing the surface temperature of objects.

Advantages:
1. Reduce the internal heat of the car and improve driving comfort;
2. The significant decrease in temperature on the exterior surface of the vehicle can effectively protect the aging of internal parts, extend the service life, eliminate the hidden danger of self ignition, and ensure the safety of vehicle use;
3. Excellent thermal radiation isolation ability can delay the escape and dissipation of heat from the cockpit and interior of the vehicle during winter driving, saving energy. It can be extended to battery coating and increase the winter range of batteries;
4. Reduce the energy consumption of the air conditioning system and increase the cruising range.

2. Non electric cooling coating

Description:Multi component and multi-scale nano particle materials achieve efficient solar reflection and mid infrared radiation through atmospheric windows. The solar reflectance and mid infrared radiation rate are both as high as 95%, effectively suppressing heat absorption and promoting heat release, achieving zero energy cooling without the need for external power sources and refrigerants.

Advantages:

1. Safety and Environmental Protection: Ultra low VOC water-based coatings that comply with multiple international standards;

2. Convenient construction: simple operation, intuitive cooling;

3. Comprehensive mechanical performance: waterproof, oil resistant, flame-retardant, and highly hydrophobic.

3. Silver plated thermal insulation coating

Description:Silver plated thermal insulation coating is a process technology for depositing a silver film on the surface of glass. This layer of silver film can enhance the reflective and thermal protection properties of glass, and is widely used in industries such as construction, automotive, and home appliances. By using vacuum coating technology, high reflectivity silver film is uniformly coated on the glass surface to achieve thermal insulation and sun protection effects.

Advantage:While ensuring high UV and infrared isolation rates, it can also maintain a sunroom like transparency and spaciousness inside the car.

4. Anti fog and hydrophobic coating

Description:Anti fog and hydrophobic coatings have good hydrophilicity, with a surface tension close to that of water, which can prevent water droplets from adhering to the surface of the coating.

Advantages:Anti fog coatings can effectively improve driving safety and reduce traffic accidents caused by unclear visibility.

Development:Anti fog coatings have been applied to the front headlights and taillight covers of most car models. The material of the front headlights is PC, and the material of the taillights is PMMA.

5. Luminescent coating

Description:It is based on electroluminescent technology, which can be applied to the surface of various materials such as plastic, metal, glass, carbon fiber, etc., and combined with simple electronic components to emit light.

Advantage:Users can customize various patterns to make the coating display richer effects.

6.Hub Ultra Black Coating (Light Absorbing Coating)

Description:Hub Ultra Black Coating, also known as Light Absorbing Coating, is a special functional coating specifically designed to reduce light reflection and scattering. It can absorb most of the incident light, significantly reducing the surface glossiness and giving the coating a very deep black effect. This coating is widely used in scenes that require high contrast, low reflectivity, or stealth effects.

Advantages:

1. Superior optical performance: significantly reduces reflection and scattering, and improves the accuracy of the optical system;

2. Unique appearance effect: presenting an extremely deep black color with strong visual appeal;

3. Strong adaptability: It can be applied to various substrates (such as metal, plastic, glass, etc.) to meet different needs.

Development:Although Hub Ultra Black Coating (Light Absorbing Coating) has excellent optical properties and wide application prospects, its high cost, construction difficulty, insufficient mechanical properties, and limited weather resistance still need to be overcome.

7. Transparent coating

Description:Transparent coating refers to a coating that can transmit electromagnetic waves without changing their properties (including energy). Smart driving cars rely on sensors and cameras for environmental perception, so some parts of the body, such as the front windshield and body mirrors, require the use of special transparent coatings.

Advantages:It can reduce light interference and improve the performance of sensors. The main function of transparent coatings is to block interference signals, including various electromagnetic signals and common light refraction/scattering. It will not seriously interfere with the radar cover and radar operation, and has outstanding countermeasures against weak electromagnetic interference signals and light interference.