Functional electronics meet seamless automotive exteriors
Staying ahead of the curve
Today’s automotive engineers and designers have been tasked with creating exteriors that meet a whole new set of consumer preferences. Once again, Covestro has stepped forward to provide novel material and design solutions that allow ideas to move from the drawing board to the open road.
Designers now want exteriors to be visually seamless – with hidden-until-lit or clear-until-lit features. At the same time, they often want the surface to be physically seamless, so that a person could run their hand across the grille panel and never encounter a seam or a gap.
In particular, all eyes are on the front end as engineers seek to integrate new functions in an attractive and hidden way. Covestro’s materials help enable a seamless surface across the whole front of the vehicle, even when implementing functional electronics such as LEDs, capacitive touch sensors, radar, and light detection and ranging (Lidar).
When Covestro develops polycarbonates for use on automotive exteriors, it considers everything from reducing weight to reducing the carbon footprint. The lightweight, transparent, eco-friendly composition of Covestro’s materials open up a whole new world of design options for automakers.
