Smooth workflows for interior and exterior excellence
Automotive design is a fast-paced industry with high demand on continuous innovation and high-quality applications but also smooth, precise, and large-scale production lines. Additionally, the pressure for more sustainable solutions is on the rise. Efficient production – saving time and costs – is a key need for designers when trying to balance smart design features, high performance, and more sustainable solutions.
For the exterior of a vehicle, this primarily means that faster and less energy-intensive coating processes are in demand. Inside a vehicle, the aim is to achieve attractive visual and haptic effects through novel material combinations, while retaining a good air quality and facilitating the seamless integration of smart functionalities at the same time.
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More beautiful and more functional – with less production steps
With our DirectCoating technology, car interior designers can leverage the so-called reaction injection molding (RIM) process to create surfaces with a wide variety of textures, finishes, and transparencies. These surfaces feature the high-class look and feel of glass, metal, and other materials, while also housing smart-display, ambient-lighting, and touch-control functions. What makes DirectCoating so interesting for cost-aware designers, besides the appealing results, is the productivity boost it brings: RIM molding enables quicker production without a drying step, yielding a precision part with integrated coating in just two steps. Precision RIM parts mean no overspray and less rework and finishing.
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Our waterborne INSQIN® technology provides an alternative both to leather and conventional, solvent-based synthetics in car interiors. It features the extravagance and beauty of leather but is lighter and very durable. These features play a significant role in heavily used vehicles of established car-sharing services. In addition, INSQIN® stands out due to more efficient production processes: there is no need to wash out any solvent after applying the waterborne coating – this means one production step less.
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Quicker paint-shop workflows for impressive coating results
Paint shops are on the lookout for materials that speed up their entire repair process. Pasquick® is our answer to this need: a refinish coating system that cures at room temperature nearly as fast as conventional coatings do at high temperatures. The productivity gain for professional users is twofold: in addition to the increased throughput thanks to accelerated curing, the energy costs for the curing oven are also eliminated. The overall results: greater flexibility, lower costs, and less bottlenecks in the paint shop.
Digital printing of coatings is another way of improving workshop productivity. As an overspray-free, maskless, and digital application technology, it enables the cost-efficient, on-demand individualization of exterior and interior paint designs as well as paint performance.
High-performance polyurethane-based raw materials including Desmodur® crosslinkers and Bayhydrol® resins are key ingredients for our partners to develop individual formulation solutions, along with Covestro’s application development support for various printing technologies.
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The manual preparation of 2K clear coats is part of everyday life in every paint shop. For a seasoned expert, measuring, weighing, and stirring the components are purely routine tasks. However, these steps steal time from the painting process.
Our innovation Dockit® simplifies preparation by condensing the entire mixing process into a single capsule. This means the clear coat and hardener are precisely dosed in two chambers. The two components flow into each other at the touch of a button – and the coating material is immediately ready for use. This means you can fully concentrate on what counts: flawless coating results that will delight your customers.