This car really glows. No. Really. It glows. Welcome to the electroluminescent digital camouflage adorning the first fully electric Volkswagen sedan, the ID.7, set to display at the Consumer Electronics Show this weekend in Las Vegas.
So, how does this car’s “paint” light up?…
I can't wait to see what the regulatory bodies do with that obvious and blatant hazard to.... Something. 
As for a new trend? I think it's a gimmick until hobbyists get ahold of it, in which case see my previous line. That's not to say it's bad but we're not far removed from everyone gushing over pavement colored cars. Brightly colored cars are already a gimmick for "immature" brands like Jeep and Dodge. I just don't see how this benefits the shareholders more than basic paint so I don't think it will make it into the mainstream production lines.
It's been around for a while. You see it used on endurance race cars for numbers, for example,, and I remember seeing electroluminescent cars at SEMA years ago. Not implemented at this level, though - some nerds got let off the leash and got to execute one of the things they'd been dreaming up in the bar :)
I prefer the analog...
Been around for at least a decade in the aftermarket. This is just one of the companies involved. Doubt it will ever become mainstream as its a very cost and labor intensive thing...
Error404 said:I can't wait to see what the regulatory bodies do with that obvious and blatant hazard to.... Something.
They haven't done a thing about how glaring headlights have gotten so why would they bother for this?
Does it make any practical sense? Not really.
Do I still want it? Absolutely.
Just imagine how cool a light-up DeLorean would be.
llysgennad said:I prefer the analog...
The Ghost of the General Lee!
In reply to Trent :
Right on, brother! There used (ought?) to be a law!
This is especially true when driving a car that is lower to the ground, like all of the ones I drive (Elan, 944, RX-7, FR-S, etc...).
Audi bought into OLED tail lights in a big way. OLED is an electroluminescent technology. VW probably just walked across the hall and asked in their polite, German, way to borrow it for the great unveiling. Definitely a gimmick.
Trent said:Error404 said:I can't wait to see what the regulatory bodies do with that obvious and blatant hazard to.... Something.
They haven't done a thing about how glaring headlights have gotten so why would they bother for this?
That's different. Those headlights have to be stupid bright due to how high they are off the ground, a distance dictated by their mandate to style trucks aggressively. /s
I'd be very happy if headlights were addressed. They're often too high off the ground or unshielded, even before lift kits, and I think most everyone would agree that headlights at eye level is not in the interest of safe roads. Then again we have squatted trucks rolling around unchecked. Oh well, we tried nothing and it didn't work.
Never heard of bright colors as being immature, but I'll take immature over dead inside black /white/silver every day of the week.
Error404 said:Trent said:Error404 said:I can't wait to see what the regulatory bodies do with that obvious and blatant hazard to.... Something.
They haven't done a thing about how glaring headlights have gotten so why would they bother for this?
That's different. Those headlights have to be stupid bright due to how high they are off the ground, a distance dictated by their mandate to style trucks aggressively. /s
I'd be very happy if headlights were addressed. They're often too high off the ground or unshielded, even before lift kits, and I think most everyone would agree that headlights at eye level is not in the interest of safe roads. Then again we have squatted trucks rolling around unchecked. Oh well, we tried nothing and it didn't work.
In my area, it's a complete disregard for high beam use. 20 years ago it wasn't a problem, and if it was, one flash of your brights would wake them up. Now you can flash them 20 times and they don't get it.
I know this is far fetched.. but in the future could you hit a button and instantly your car will look like a state trooper? Or, even crazier... a backward facing camera displays its whole image on the front of the car, thus camouflaging the vehicle?
In reply to Purple Frog (Forum Supporter) :
It will likely take all of 10 days for someone to hack it and do crazy stuff with it. I would hack mine so that every time I honk my horn a big middle finger appears on the hood. I would probably hack my ex's car so it had a big hairy penis on it when the ignition was on. I wonder how long it would take her to notice.
Think about how easy it would be to change livery and numbers at the track. Instead of giving you a big vinyl sticker they could just give you a thumb drive. Plug it in and a big number shows up on your door and sponsor decals show up on the quarter panels
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
That's more of an application for what BMW dubbed a E-INK. Think of the screen of an early gen IPOD. Black / White / Grey. Not durable. But as a "proof of concept"... it worked. They had it at CES. Still, just a novelty more than anything but who knows what the next 10 years will bring.
But, in the case of EL paints, the last 10 years haven't brought much of anything. Super low demand. Prohibitive cost and being labor intensive kind of left that one dead in the water. Plus, it just honestly isn't all that impressive in person, considering the effort required. Just my .02 of a buck.
In reply to GaryC83 :
Early iPods were monochrome LCDs, but they kinda looked like e-ink.
E-ink is heavily used in e-readers (kindles, nooks, etc) because it has very low power requirements. It also doesn't require power to maintain the image, so you see a lot of it in static displays like the prices at a grocery store. I think it's got some interesting potential use cases in instrumentation, but putting it on the outside is just a stunt.
Once upon a time there was a law regarding headlight intensity. It was based on wattage. I remember buying "European Spec." bulbs from the back pages of AutoWeek back when it was on newsprint. I think they were 55W lows and 100W highs. The US spec was 55W lows and only 65W highs.
Nowadays, headlight aliggnment isn't even part of the NYS inspection.
As for E Ink, it is not a light emitter, but a light reflector. In the dark, E Ink is black.
llysgennad said:I prefer the analog...
But what about the 8-bit digital?
Nred said:Once upon a time there was a law regarding headlight intensity. It was based on wattage. I remember buying "European Spec." bulbs from the back pages of AutoWeek back when it was on newsprint. I think they were 55W lows and 100W highs. The US spec was 55W lows and only 65W highs.
Nowadays, headlight aliggnment isn't even part of the NYS inspection.
As for E Ink, it is not a light emitter, but a light reflector. In the dark, E Ink is black.
The fact that it's a reflective surface makes it even better for gauges. We know how to light them at night.
Nred said:Once upon a time there was a law regarding headlight intensity. It was based on wattage. I remember buying "European Spec." bulbs from the back pages of AutoWeek back when it was on newsprint. I think they were 55W lows and 100W highs. The US spec was 55W lows and only 65W highs.
Nowadays, headlight aliggnment isn't even part of the NYS inspection.
That was also back in the days where you pretty much had four choices of pre-engineered, third-party sealed beam lights. Big round, little round, big square, little square. USDOT hasn't kept up. As far as I know, it's pretty much a free-for-all kegger at the OEMs. I mean, obviously they are still DOT approved, but by what standard? I have a feeling it's a person who looks at them and says, "yup, they're headlights." That's the only way I can imagine that Jeeps and Ford Super Duty can get away with that annoying stadium lighting.
Lumilor was one of the early companies to try to make a go at scaling the technology. They partnered with Lexus for a promo where the voltage logic tied in to the driver's hear rate sensor. There is a youtube out there of the car on track with the stripes changing pace approaching corners, etc. wild stuff, and wildly expensive. But very cool.
I recall many moons ago thinking about making my first billion dollars by inventing EL paint. Basically make two electrified panels on the back of the car and paint them with a luminescent coating that lights up when you electrify the panels. Bingo. Hidden taillights. It would open up so much liberty with design.
I'm not a billionaire yet, so I haven't moved on that idea.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:Nred said:Once upon a time there was a law regarding headlight intensity. It was based on wattage. I remember buying "European Spec." bulbs from the back pages of AutoWeek back when it was on newsprint. I think they were 55W lows and 100W highs. The US spec was 55W lows and only 65W highs.
Nowadays, headlight aliggnment isn't even part of the NYS inspection.
That was also back in the days where you pretty much had four choices of pre-engineered, third-party sealed beam lights. Big round, little round, big square, little square. USDOT hasn't kept up. As far as I know, it's pretty much a free-for-all kegger at the OEMs. I mean, obviously they are still DOT approved, but by what standard? I have a feeling it's a person who looks at them and says, "yup, they're headlights." That's the only way I can imagine that Jeeps and Ford Super Duty can get away with that annoying stadium lighting.
FMVSS 108, but it might reference some SAE papers.
If you had a forward and rearward facing camera to feed images into a computer, you could render a vehicle invisible to a single veiwer.
If you had this installed on a vehicle, you could run ads on it and receive a check each month from companies that you advertise for. Hmm driving a uhaul style truck with GRM Magazines ads running all over it to a auto event....$$$ :0D
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