A new, revolutionary polymer from GE could soon be replacing the paint in today's automobiles. With better color and better scratch and chemical resistance this 'dyed plastic' could be just we need keep our Zs scratch and chip free!

Business 2.0
GE info

What do you think?

 

now that would be cool. ya think it would raise the price of the plastic they use on your car...in turn raising the price of the car??

 

I remember reading about this a few months ago on slashdot.org.

It looks like something that the auto industry will slowly adopt, but only when the price starts to drop.
I would expect to see it on some high dollar sports cars before anything else.
However, it will probably debut on a Neon.

 

Brilliant!

If they can eventually get the costs down this could revolutionize car building and ultimately decrease the cost of vehicles. There are tons of possibilities:

1. Rather than getting a new paint job you could just swap body panels.
2. Ask any Saturn owner how much it cost them to fix collision damage. The don't have to bend anything, just replace. If this were possible for more cars it would eventually bring down the price of insurance.
3. Body kits could come pre-matched to the exact color and have the same dent resistance as all other parts on the car.

pretty good stuff. Great Find!

P.S. I'm a newbie but I really like this board.

 

I don't think it costs any more than painted plastic on a piece by piece basis, but changing an industry standard practice is very difficult, especially with the intial expense. It will be like any other new technology; You will pay a premium at first but the price will come down quickly as people start to adopt it.

I definitely see this being used more and more, especially on high-end sports cars that already use plastics for the majority of their body panels.

 

Guess they really do bring good things to life. There are apparently some R&D benefits from being the largest company in the whole damn world.

Your exterior could change colors with temperature and we'd be able to elliminate the temp gage too. My z's red it must be 85 or my z's black it must be 35. Would make it tough to report a stolen car.

 

i really doubt that they could get the shine of paint into a piece of color coded plastic. look at a boat with its gel coat, doesnt shine like a nice paint job with some good wax on it.

 

 

It sounds like a great solution to me. I would think people would be willing to pay a little more at first when you consider all the benifits: deeper color, better scratch resistance, lighter weight, etc.