After BMW, this automaker comes up with colour changing technology. Check details

Unlike traditional methods of repainting or applying vinyl wraps, Toyota’s color-changing paint is designed to change hues in response to heat and light.

The automotive industry is constantly evolving, with consumer preferences for vehicle colours and styles changing rapidly. In view of this, Toyota has applied for a patent for colour-changing paint, a technology that could allow owners or dealerships to quickly change the colours of cars.

The application, published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in March this year but originally filed in 2022, outlines how owners may want to change paint colours to keep up with trends or simply to change things up. Dealers could also change colours to make cars more appealing and easier to sell, according to Toyota.

Instead of a complex repaint or vinyl wrap, Toyota claims to have developed paint that can alter its hues in response to heat and light. The process, as described in the application, involves driving a car into a garage bay with tunnel-like heating elements surrounding it. As the paint surface is heated, a light-emitting “colour modulator” device is passed over the paint surface to complete the transformation.

The colour modulator, which could be controlled by a human operator or a robot, would essentially serve as the controller for this process. It could communicate with a remote server as well as temperature sensors embedded in the vehicle’s bodywork to determine the correct settings for a specific colour, according to the application.

While Toyota acknowledges that it is not the first automaker to experiment with colour-changing paint, it highlights BMW’s demonstration of similar technology at CES 2022 on its iX electric SUV.

BMW’s way of changing colours

BMW demonstrated its colour-changing technology with theBMW iX Flow during CES 2022. The EV featuring the E Ink technology became the first car in the world whose exterior colour can change at the touch of a button.

The colour changes are made possible by a specially developed body wrap tailored precisely to the contours of the iX Flow. When stimulated by electrical signals, the electrophoretic technology – similar to that used in Kindle e-readers – brings different colour pigments to the surface, causing the body skin to take on the desired colour.

There are millions of paint capsules in the custom wrap, with a diameter equivalent to the thickness of a human hair. Each of these microcapsules contains negatively charged white pigments and positively charged black pigments. Depending on the chosen setting, stimulation by means of an electrical field causes either the white or the black pigments to collect at the surface of the microcapsule, giving the car the desired shade.

After the segments are applied and the power supply for stimulating the electrical field is connected, the entire body is warmed and sealed to guarantee optimum and uniform colour reproduction during every colour change, said BMW.

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