As the car has undergone some huge changes in its 130-year history, companies such as material manufacturer Covestro want to take advantage of new opportunities in the automotive supply chain.
Covestro was spun off from the German chemical group Bayer in 2015 to produce advanced polymers and high-performance plastics for various industries. About a quarter of its annual sales of about 16 billion euros come from the automotive industry.
New technologies will be at the heart of the next generation of connected, autonomous, electric and shared cars. According to Paul Platte, Covestro's senior North American marketing manager for polycarbonates in the automotive and transportation industries, the company's materials play an important role.
"These trends have created important new business opportunities for us," he said in an interview.
Stealth Lidar System
Many companies, whether or not they are already part of the automotive supply chain, say that the transformation of the automotive industry can bring new business. For Covestro, the potential lies in the materials side, and multiple use cases can be seen in future cars and trucks.
Covestro envisions the future of a self-driving car that will be shared among users who are doing many different things on the road. All their activities have one thing in common: they are powered by connected electronics built into the interior space of the car.
Covestro predicts that car sharing will lead to increased demand for durable and easy-to-clean materials for seats and floors. Therefore, it offers products specifically designed for this purpose.
The company also expects in-vehicle sensors and other electronics to be increasingly embedded in panels and pillars. Covestro is working on a transparent surface made of "Makrolon" polycarbonate.
In the future, cars will have multiple displays, regardless of whether the car has a driver. These displays can be embedded on a transparent surface instead of popping up and taking up extra space. They may be located in the car's B-pillar or the back of the seat, and they were invisible until electronic lighting.
At the VDI conference held in Mannheim, Germany last month, Covestro showed a speedometer with precise light control. The three-dimensional surface of the display is made of Covestro polycarbonate film.
Lidar systems are considered key to autonomous vehicles and can also be embedded in interior materials. Paul Platte said: "Lidar can penetrate the surface, but you can't see the lidar."
Absorb heat
As more and more electric vehicles are sold and cars become more and more automated, Covestro sees the potential to increase the use of thermally conductive polycarbonate, which will help absorb more and more computer systems in cars. Emitted heat.
"Computing power will increase with the increase of automotive artificial intelligence systems, and electronic products generate heat in a limited space, which is an important development area for us." Paul Platte said.
One of these spaces is the car's headlamp housing, where the heat generated by the LEDs and associated circuits can be absorbed by thermally conductive polycarbonate. Covestro is taking technology from industrial lighting applications and adapting it to cars.
Paul Platte said automotive designers can benefit from Covestro's polycarbonate materials because they can be transparent, impact resistant and heat resistant. This provides designers with more options for integrating electronic equipment in the car.
Covestro expects electrification to be the number one transformation trend in the automotive industry, and the company recently signed an agreement with Tongji University in Shanghai, China, to improve battery performance and other R & D capabilities in electric vehicles.
Paul Platte said that for electric vehicle batteries, it is important to use flame-retardant lightweight packaging and can be molded into different shapes. The enclosure should also have a minimum thickness.
Fusion between automotive and electronics
With the increasing integration of traditional cars and digital technologies in automobiles, the blurring of boundaries between the two industries has also benefited Covestro, which has a significant share in the electrical and electronics industries.
"There was some overlap five years ago, but not much. Now there is quite a bit of overlap, and it is increasing. Within five years, the difference between the two may be even smaller," said Paul Platte.