Toyota has filed a patent application in the US for colour-changing paint, which would allow owners to quickly change the hues of cars.
According to Motorauthority.com, Toyota filed the application in the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) with the idea that owners may want to change paint colours to keep up with trends or just to make a change. Dealers could also change colours to make cars easier to sell.
Toyota said it had developed a paint that can change colour in reaction to heat and light, and can be used in place of a repaint or vinyl wrap. The application describes how a car would be driven into a garage bay with tunnel-like heating elements that would surround it on all sides. As the paint surface is heated, a light-emitting “colour modulator” device would be passed over the paint surface to complete the transformation.
Toyota is not the first motor company to work on the idea of colour-changing cars. BMW has experimented with electrophoretic technology used in e-readers, using millions of microcapsules in an exterior wrap to create colour-change effects. The structure and arrangement of the colour particles can be changed by applying an electric voltage.
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