Car Paint Changes With Temperature

PlayfullyClever writes "It's now common to build materials which can change colors depending on their surrounding environment because of progresses made in colloid chemistry. But now, German researchers have gone a step further. They've used ion bombardment and gold metallisation to produce new particles whose bonding behavior can be chemically tailored. This could lead to new shimmering car finishes which can change with temperature or humidity, new cosmetics, but more importantly, to new applications in optical data processing"

All the ricers

[doubtless]

All the Ricers Rejoice!

Now we're not limited to Type-R stickers anymore!

Re:All the ricers

[moro_666]

Who gives a [censored] about the temperature ?

The car should be black for the rest of the world, and cute yellow for my girlfriend. So she woulnd't mind if i buy it ("cause it's soooo cute"), and i'd still have a solid nice macho black car.

Even better would be if she'd see a small cute renault, whereas i'd see a '67 mustang ...

Re:All the ricers

[richdun]

Man, those ricers always get the tech before us in the States. First they had those rice/electric hybrids, then fancy stickers, now fancy color-changing stickers. What's next, a 10 year warranty?

Pimped!

[isecore]

I can already hear Xzibit running like mad to get this stuff. Cars that change colors? You've officially been pimped!

Re:Pimped!

[xYoni69x]

For some people, cars are just red, green and blue. But for me, they change with temperature. You know why? 'cause I'm your boy X to the Z Xzibit!

Re:Pimped!

[LittleBigLui]

I'm your boy X to the Z Xzibit!

You liar! You're really my boy x to the Y xYoni69x!

Real Scientific Applications...

[Chris Bradshaw]

This could mean a great deal for real scientific applications such as the "aura detector" http://www.amasci.com/freenrg/aura/aura.html [amasci.com]

Re:Real Scientific Applications...

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful? Try Bunk [skepdic.com]

New: The Mood Car

[jmp_nyc]

Just in time for the next wave of 70's nostalgia.
-JMP

Re:New: The Mood Car

[ZorinLynx]

I had a Disney's "Aladdin" cup that I got from McDonald's or BK or somewhere in the early 90s that changed color "magically" when you poured a cold beverage into it.

Unfortunately the color-changing coat eventually all came off. Cheap crap!

My point is this "technology" isn't exactly new, though.

-Z

Re:New: The Mood Car

[KDR_11k]

As even the summary says, the new part is that it can be turned into different kinds of paint. Unless your car is made of cheap plastic you can't use paint meant for plastic on it.

we had this years ago

[rebug]

Hypercolor [wikipedia.org] shirts were awesome!

Re:we had this years ago

[isd_glory]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

I find it slightly amusing that it's taken car manufacturers nearly 20 years to catch up with the latest in 80's t-shirt technology.

Re:we had this years ago

[vistic]

Not just that, but more on topic, I remember having MicroMachines and HotWheels cars that did this years ago... you used to change their color by putting cold water on them... and then they would change back as the car warmed up to room temperature again.

I hated wearing my Hypercolor shirt... people used to come up and slap their hand on your shirt all the time... but then again that was back in 5th grade.

Re:we had this years ago and it was crap then too.

[kholburn]

Yeah: hypercolor shirts that changed colour when you changed temperature - showed where you were sweaty etc.

A car that has a big red splotch on the bonnet just above the engine when it warms up.

That's got to be useful for something, NOT.

Re:we had this years ago

[LordLucless]

Not only awesome, but therepeutic.

When I was a kid, I had chickenpox. My case was an especially severe one, and I was bedridden for a while with high fevers, which we kept down through medication. I just lay in bed in my hypercolour shirt, and when it started to change colour (due to the fever beginning to rise), Mum could tell the meds had worn off and I needed another dose. Better than mucking around with thermometers every half hour or so.

Re:we had this years ago

[Zog The Undeniable]

My sexagenarian father-in-law still wears his!

I don't get it

[the_humeister]

Maybe it's just me, but what's so great about using this as car paint? Certainly the article could have expanded on other uses. On the other hand, it might pretty good for my low-rider

Re:I don't get it

[NoTheory]

This would be a terrible idea. What car has an even temperature distribution? All i can imagine are cars whose paint has begun to fade and peel from engine heat, only now, in new shiny colors.

Re:I don't get it

[ozmanjusri]

Maybe it's just me, but what's so great about using this as car paint?

Having cars which turn white or reflective in summer and dark in winter could be a huge energy saver.

Re:I don't get it

[iggymanz]

I was think of the opposite for a car to become more visible for purposes of safety: during the day and in good weather your car is its normal color, but turns white or light pastel color at night, dark during daytime snowstorm, yellow-green during fog, etc.

Re:I don't get it

[BrainInAJar]

Yeah, for when the US is involved in actions that push from the arctic through a jungle to the middle east without stopping...

Police car chases

[cciRRus]

They have just made police car chases a lot more harder, and interesting as well!

Viper

[Spy der Mann]

There was a TV show about a car used by govt spies. It was called the Viper, and besides having cool gadgets and weapons, it could change color. Unfortunately it was cancelled pretty quick. I liked the idea, tho.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viper_(TV_series) [wikipedia.org]

Re:Viper

[zippthorne]

Pretty quick? it ran for four seasons. Pretty good for a glorified car commercial that basically just copied Knight Rider.

Re:Police car chases

[KDR_11k]

Number-changing license plates?

Re:Police car chases

[maxwell demon]

You mean the number on your license plate depends on the temperature? Pretty nice idea. Indeed, you could have it just display the current temperature as number. That way, it would also be useful as standalone application. We just have to find a nice name for it ... oh, I know, thermometer! :-)

Hotwheels: Now in full size!

[Ismilar]

Anyone remember those Hotwheels toy cars that changed colour with hot and cold water? Or Hypercolour T-shirts? No? I think this technology is a little late for the 80's...

Re:Hotwheels: Now in full size!

[Kadin2048]

Yeah this is exactly what I was going to say. I definitely had a whole set of these things: the changes were pretty dramatic, too. I remember one car could go from dark blue to white in less than a second if you dropped it from warm water into ice water.

I wonder why this is such a big deal now? Seems like the Hot Wheels guys had it figured out. Maybe their patent just expired?

I wonder if the paint ever wears out, or stops working after a certain number of cycles or amount of time.

not just the 80s

[commodoresloat]

remember mood rings? Just imagine mood cars! Show the world your road rage as your car turns a fiery angry reddish-purple...

Re:not just the 80s

[meringuoid]

Show the world your road rage as your car turns a fiery angry reddish-purple...

How delightfully Freudian.

Sounds good but...

[Capeman]

...would major car manufacturers use it on their car models?

Be on the lookout for...

[YrWrstNtmr]

1 Adam 12, 1 Adam 12...be on the lookout for a GREEN Chevy sedan. Unless its after 6 PM or so....then be on the lookout for a BLUE Chevy sedan.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term "hot car"...

[Zhe Mappel]

The job of a car thief is hard enough without also having to consult the Weather Channel for opportune times to strike. ;-)

Re:Be on the lookout for...

[OldManAndTheC++]

Hmmm, I can see this going one of two directions:

Scenario One: Bank robbers consult weather reports closely, timing their strikes for optimal camoflauge. Police foiled!

Scenario Two: Corporate-Fascist government requires all cars to incorporate transceivers that tie into the body of the car, and when police dial in the car's license plate number the color changes to spell out "PULL ME OVER, I AM A CRIMINAL. OH BTW SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL POLICE!"

Re:Be on the lookout for...

[bergeron76]

Be aware, suspect may also be wearing 80's Hypercolor T-Shirt...

Possible flaw

[MirrororriM]

I forsee one possible flaw with this technology. I am from Michigan and we see hot summers and cold winters. In winter, your hood will be much warmer than the rest of your vehicle due to the engine heat. I would think you would end up with blotches all over your car. In summer, the air conditioning, I would think, would produce similar results.

Re:Possible flaw

[Belseth]

Some one from my home state. As part of that flaw it'd be an easy way for your neighbors to know you just got home. Also it could form a kind of lie detector if you happen to tell the wife you haven't been out all day yet the car hood is a different color. It's not been an issue so far since humans don't see infared but temperature sensitive paint would convert the heat into a visible form.

Re:Possible flaw

[lboxman]

Your wife or nosy neighbor could simply feel the hood to see if the engine was warm.

Re:Possible flaw

[rtaylor]

It would be neat if you could get a white car in summer and a dark or black car in winter. I wonder what energy savings (if any) could be obtained through something like this.

Re:Possible flaw

[Breakfast Pants]

I don't know. That would be great for a house, but it seems to me that a white car would be superior overall. Engines rely on heat differential to operate, and additionally in the winter you warm the car to any arbitrarily human withstandable degree with the waste heat of the engine.

Wow.. they invented something that already exists.

[Torawk]

Well I don't know if it works the same way but there is temp sensitive automotive paint you can buy now:

http://www.alsacorp.com/products/xposurepaint/xpos urepaint_prodinfo.htm [alsacorp.com]

-Torawk

Re:Wow.. they invented something that already exis

[shotgunefx]

More importantly, does it share the limited lifespan of Eclipse and Xposure coatings? I think they "wear out" after a year or so.

Computer cases!

[Sandman1971]

A better use of this technology would be to use the paint on computer cases and CPU fans, not cars! Yes, I'm a geek.

Re:Computer cases!

[pickyouupatnine]

Well.. anything with a temperature regulation requirement. I suppose the question would be, what sort of temperature constraints do these paints work under? Or can they be 'configured' to work under any fixed range?

Re:Computer cases!

[jZnat]

Add a fan? I think you mean `change the liquid helium cooling system'.

Police departments will complain

[bogaboga]

The police will complain once these cars finally become readily available. You see, a criminal could commit a crime in the Texas heat as an example. This criminal then drives a few hundred kilometers north where the temperatiures are cooler and viola, what was a red truck is now purple with stripes! What follows is chaos!

Re:Police departments will complain

[keraneuology]

On Knight Rider the bad guy escaped from Michael and KITT because he had painted his car using water-based paint and simply drove through a car wash - he then drove right by KITT's rear view mirror but since the sensors only detect color (on cars that are out of visual range????) he got away. I also recall a similar gag used in Canonball Run (one of them), and CHiPS.

Colors that attract heat

[aussie_a]

This could be used to change the car to a color that attracts heat when it's cold, and repels heat when it's hot. It might help somewhat with the heat and cold, but would the particles add more heat so the heat repelling functions don't really work? I'm thinking no, as I believe it happens on a micro-level, but I could be wrong.

Re:Colors that attract heat

[aussie_a]

That's a good point. I assumed it worked by sufficient lightrays hitting it, but it probably does work on heat, not light. Perhaps they could make the front part need a higher level of heat? But then it would look strange when not turned on.

Coming soon...

[winkydink]

...to a a Type-R near you. Huge rear wing that applies downforce to the wrong wheels optional.

Re:Coming soon...

[TubeSteak]

If Ricers were really smart, they'd put huge truck sized bug-deflectors on their rides for the extra downforce.

Cause we know that they're going fast enough that they need the extra downforce to prevent high-speed lift...

Re:Coming soon...

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

It's not the wrong wheels. Look at WTCC or BTCC races. Pretty much all the FWD cars have a rear spoiler. It prevents the rear-end sliding out. It's just that it has less of an effect on-power compared to a RWD or 4WD. But when the power is off, and weight is transfered to the front, the rear wheels will still want to switch ends.

Re:Coming soon...

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Oh, and you are so much better than most of the racing mechanics in the World Touring Car Championship?

Anyone making such remarks doesn't really know anything about real-world car dynamics.

Re:Coming soon...

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

OK. There we go [eurostc.com]. Are you trying to rell me that the Alfa Romeo team in the WTCC don't know what they are doing, or that they though that they were too fast so decided to whack a rear wing on the back to create some aerodynamic drag? Take a look at the other photos on that site (from the gallery link on the homepage) and you will notice that pretty much all the FWD cars have a rear wing.

Re:On second thought...

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

A FWD car has a tendency to understeer on power. Off power, it's all up to the weight distrubution, which probably still does put more weight over the front than a non FWD car, but that is different to main cause of the understeering characteristics of a FWD car since weight distrubution can easly be changed and varys from car to car anyway.

To say that the rear wheels do nothing but roll is a load of bollocks. 20% is a lot in racing. Not having the rear-end setup properly can give you a car who's ass will

Re:Coming soon...

[Dachannien]

This seriously riced out link [infoseek.co.jp] goes out to all the people who don't know what the parent post was talking about.

parking lot

[lposeidon]

its hard enough to find my car in a parking lot when it has normal paint. imagine trying to find your car when it changed colors. its down right impossible.

Re:parking lot

[HermanAB]

More likely, the colour will change in splotches. Cars have serious hot spots and with low sun angles, the solar warming will be uneven too.

Temperature based cosmetics?

[boss soul]

How would this work, exactly?

"Wow Carol... that new rouge really looks nice on you!"

"Thanks for noticing, Sue - but it only looks nice when the temperature is below 75 degrees... any warmer than that and I'd look like a total whore!"

Now, where did I park my car again?

[Boccaccio]

Damn - I have trouble remembering where I parked my car at the best of times. If it's gonna start changing colour too then I'm really screwed!

Certainly not going to be used in cars

[DreadPiratePizz]

I can tell you this WON'T be used in cars anytime soon. I recall at the Society of Automotive engineers seeing a similar paint that changed colour depending on the angle you viewed it at. In addition to being ridiculously expensive, it was later decided you couldn't paint your car with it, since it would complicate things if law enforcement needed to locate your car.

Re:Certainly not going to be used in cars

[TubeSteak]

I don't know about law enforcement, but there was a local guy who owned a mustang painted with green-to-purple paint... damn that thing was ugly.

Must have cost him a pretty penny, but it was ugly.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Pretty data processing

[MarkRose]

new cosmetics, but more importantly, to new applications in optical data processing How can you tell a geek submitted this? Women could look prettier, but no, optical data processing is far more interesting.

Been there, done that!

[Descalzo]

My car has that paint! It's activated by salt on the winter roads and other things. I've had to wait a long time for the colors to change, but there is a sort of reddish-brown highlight effect behind the tires, at the tip of the hood, and above the windsheild, surrounded by a drab gray halo, then the silver-gray regular color of the car. It looks pretty amazing!

Alternative Automotive

[Associate]

Paint parts of the car engine. I wouldn't mind knowing that when my intake manifold turns from white to red that it is at normal operating temperature. But if it should happen to turn purple, it's running too hot.

Re:Alternative Automotive

[rbinns]

This would actually be a practical use of this paint. In racing, when a team needs to quickly diagnose an engine problem clearly as a result of a bad cylinder (bad spark plug), they will put chalk streaks on the headers and see which one melts the slowest, thus pointing to the problem. If they could create a powder coat with the same properties and paint even a small part of the headers, one could visually inspect for misfiring cylinders and, if controlled well enough, could quantify cylinder-to-cylinder

Re:Alternative Automotive

[`NS]

According to a friend of mine, helicopter mechanic, they already do this to some degree. The gearbox for the tailrotor is painted with a paint which will change colours if it is goes over the maximum allowable temperature. It does not change back to its original colour after cooling down.

Re:Alternative Automotive

[ballpoint]

The strip is known as a 'telatemp', after the company [telatemp.com] who makes it.

and you'd see it when?

[YesIAmAScript]

Do you have your hood up a lot?

I guess you could put a camera under there to see the color.

Or you could just put a temperature sensor on there (with alarm) instead. It's cheaper.

BTW, intake manifolds should run pretty much at ambient. You want cool air into your engine, and a hot intake manifold would run counter to that. Additionally, intake manifolds are naturally cooled by the cool air coming in.

Exhaust manifolds get got.

Re:and you'd see it when?

[Associate]

Yes. I have my hood up a lot. The truck is 22 years old.

I was thinking more specifically to my application/problem.
The intake/exhaust manifolds on my truck are stacked.
I had a problem with the carbureator getting too hot for a while.
I fixed that problem but discovered a few others.
Currently, my number five cylinder has a vacuum leak between the intake/exhaust and the head.
I figure with my specific setup, I could probably tell if one cylinder was getting cooler/hotter mixture/exhaust by the color difference

The Cannonball Run

[narcc]

Fiction finally becomes reality! [imdb.com]

Wow... welcome back to two decades ago

[illumina+us]

Didn't they have similar paint on toy cars in the 80s and 90s?

Re:Wow... welcome back to two decades ago

[nurhussein]

Oh yeah, I had one. Hot Wheels I think. If I rummage through my old boxes I think I can still find it.

intercoolers & radiators

[doubtless]

Actually this might be useful if it's coated on radiators or intercoolers for testing and comparison purposes. You can visually inspect the efficiency of the product.

what are you thinking?

[penguin-collective]

but more importantly, to new applications in optical data processing"

You can't be serious. Obviously, car paint that changes with temperature is far more important than new applications in optical data processing. I mean, people won't be able to identify my beat up Corvette when I'm speeding because its paint will be red when I'm going 100mph and the engine is hot, and it will be blue when I park it.

(For the humor impaired: I don't speed and I don't drive a Corvette, OK?)

In Megaforce.

[www.sorehands.com]

They had this in the movie Megaforce [bluemountains.net.au].
The "Q" type character demonstrated this by putting placing a green hat on a dessert vehicle.

It would be dial to be based on voltage and frequency so that you can change your car's color by selection.

"Changing color due to humidity"

[Nova Express]

Cars can already change color due to humidity. It's called "rust". Look for this amazing shade in the 1974 Ford Pinto, or the 1989 Yugo.

Old news

[Sepper]

Color changes with temperature or humidity?
Bah! We already have that up north... and it's free... it's called 'snow'

Polka-dots!

[Malduin]

Imagine a cold rain on a warm hood...

New car finishes?

[ShyGuy91284]

I fail to see how this is that new. I remember seeing a PT cruiser outside of my HS when i was maybe a sophmore and was wondering if I was going crazy since it looked like it had two colors (due to sunlight hitting parts of it). and I'm now a junior in college. So yeah, this has been around for a while...

Will it be pretty?

[cra]

I guess that depends on taste. It will probably look weird when your engine heats up and the hood on your car starts to develop a green spot on it. Or how about that "ass-print" where you sat while bragging to your friends about this fancy new paint job you've got. ;-)

However, I see nothing new in cars that change colors by temperature? My kids have had cars that change colors by temperature for a long time. They even have toothbrushes that change colors when the temperature change.

Thermochromic Paint

[Lihtan]

This is called thermochromic paint [wikipedia.org], and it's been available on the market for a while now.

Here's a company that sells thermochromic paint, their website has pictures and even videos of the color changing in effect:
http://www.trippininc.com [trippininc.com]

that reminds me

[Errtu76]

of those toy cars i used to have when i was a kid. There were ones you held in warm water (or press with warm hands) and they would change color for a short period of time.

"I would like to report a stolen car..."

[fluor2]

"Hello? Police? I would like to report a stolen Volvo V405. The car was yellow when it was stolen, but it can also be green, blue and red."

Yeah great...

[mrjb]

...Now where did I leave my previously red car on the parking lot?

This would be illegal in NL

[Animaether]

Your car's registration includes the base color of your car (I'm not sure what percentage is required - but basically if it is perceived as blue, then your car is registered as being blue, even if you've got yellow and red flames on the hood).

If you have your car painted another color, you have to declare this and get your registration updated.

If the color doesn't match what the registration says, you can be fined.

A car which would change color frequently, such as due to temperature, would thus more than li

Parked at the shopping

[bogado]

Now you got to check the weather before searching for your lost car in the mall.

"I wonder what color my car is today..."

Cool/hot.... mood cars...

[3seas]

... like the mood ring...

But does it tell you its horny too?

Re:Welcome to the 80's?

[themoodykid]

Yeah, I had a bunch of those, like a Lamborghini Countach that changed from dark purple to pink. I used to put them in the freezer and then took them out to watch the colours change.

Re:With this ...

[binaryspiral]

So don't place your ion bombarded car in your fridge (for too long).

Well, Foxcast tells me that it's 40 degrees colder outside than in my fridge... so my ion bombarded car is pretty much screwed. :(

Re:With this ...

[binaryspiral]

oh snap! ... Forecastfox, my bad... sorry Jon Stritar and Richard Klein, didn't mean to compare your ultra useful FireFox plugin with Fox news. :(

Re:Yes, but I think the real question is...

[hdparm]

Not too clever, indeed. Just a bad troll-wannabe - gets story published, makes the first post. Come to think of it, you must be Zonk.

Or Piquepaille.

[pavon]

Notice that the story is not a normal zdnet story, it is a zdnet blog, posted by none other than Ronald Piquepaille. And the on poster's website he admits to being a troll-wannabe, who gets stories posted just to drum up traffic for his site.

I don't really care; I figure most of the stories that get submitted to the slashdot editors come with ulterior motives. I also wouldn't be surprised if there are people who intentionally resubmit every story after a while to see how many dups make it onto the front pag

Look closer.

[pavon]

This is not ZDNet news. It is ZDNet blogs. They look very simular, and have raised arguments here before about blogs being passed off as news, and whether there is any difference given the state of journalism.

But anyway, no he isn't working for them, he just moved his blog.

 

Re:Look closer.

[damsa]

If you click on related science articles, it leads you to Piquepaille's del.icio.us site, clicking on one of those links, it leads you to Piquepaille's blog.

Re:Look closer.

[damsa]

Here is the link to http://www.primidi.com/ [primidi.com]. If you click, you can see that Roland has done a more thorough job on the Zdnet post, than the same info on his site.

Re:Link Spam?

[MDMurphy]

Getting a story past Zonk is a pretty low bar to make it over.

Re:Naill Polish

[narcc]

As for Hypercolour T shirts... mine changed from Green to Yellow

My T-shrit changed from white to yellow -- but I couldn't get it to change back...