At the recent “Automotive Surfaces: Advances in Decorative and Functional Automotive Surfaces” symposium held in Berlin on 12-13 December, Dr Eva García-Lecina, CIDETEC Surface Engineering director, gave her presentation on applying omniphobic coatings in automotives.

To date, the automotive sector has pursued competitive factors such as lightness, the reduction of consumption, sustainability, safety, aesthetics and costs.The arrival of a new mobility paradigm based on the CASE concept (Connected, Automated, Shared & Electric) has provoked a disruptive change in the sector, which is now working towards smart, sustainable, safe, efficient and integrative mobility.

As a result, there is talk of a new “ecosystem” with new stakeholders and even a new “supply chain”. The manufacturers seeking to position themselves on this market face one of the greatest challenges in their history: attending to a growing demand for customised vehicles, with new components and surfaces requiring integrated functions unheard of to date.

The new technologies provide answers capable of facilitating commercialisation. Such is the case of the universally repellent surfaces presented by CIDETEC Surface Engineering in Automotive Surfaces 2018, the leading European forum where the latest tendencies in surface innovation for car interiors are introduced, on both aesthetic and functional levels. Eva García’s presentation awakened great interest, since CIDETEC has developed and patented a technology not only capable of creating surfaces that repel all types of substances and/or traces, but also do so in a robust and lasting way imperceptible to the human eye, which is vital for application on glazing, mirrors and all types of tactile panels (navigation systems, smart phones, tablets, etc.). These surfaces likewise prevent the condensation of humidity, dirt and particles, key factors in increasing visibility and driving safety.