A Glint in Detroit's Eyes

A new plastic from GE could one day replace paint on cars -- and eliminate the biggest expense in auto manufacturing.

If you've ever seen a Segway scooter glide effortlessly uphill, you've witnessed the best attempt yet at reinventing the wheel. Take a slightly closer look at those Segway wheels, though -- specifically at the slender, two-tone plastic fenders that sit above them -- and what you'll see is an attempt at reinventing the auto body.

The fenders are coated with a 0.5-millimeter polymer layer called Sollx, a new chemical "film" developed by General Electric (GE) that covers plastic surfaces like Saran Wrap. When plastic with Sollx emerges from a mold, it gleams like freshly painted metal, in a variety of colors. It's also more resistant to scratches and chemicals than any comparable painted finish.

Segway's $5,000 scooters are the first commercially available vehicles to wear Sollx-covered parts. While GE Plastics is also trying to get the product on golf carts, jet skis, and outdoor equipment, the automobile is where the company expects to find Sollx's most profitable uses -- first as a finish for small plastic components such as side-view mirror housings and eventually as the outer coating on entire plastic-bodied cars.

True, you can already find plastic fenders on the New Beetle, ding-resistant polycarbonate doors on the Saturn, and all-plastic body panels on DaimlerChrysler's (DCX) European smart cars. But for the most part, automobiles are still hulking masses of steel that require paint -- the auto industry's single biggest manufacturing expense. Automated paint facilities, where cars are sent through coating ovens to have their high-gloss finishes baked on, account for more than a third of the cost of most car factories, running as much as $400 million apiece. "Everybody's goal is to get rid of the paint shop," says Subi Dinda, a plastics expert at DaimlerChrysler, which is already experimenting with Sollx for components such as mirror housings, doors, and fenders.

For years, car designers have been dying to get more plastic into automobiles, since it reduces weight and gives them much more latitude in the design process. And they like Sollx for its deep, attractive gloss. GE Plastics claims that the material is also theoretically capable of "thermochromic" effects that change the color with the temperature -- imagine your Lexus molting from red to black as you head from the desert to the mountains. (Note to brand builders: It's even possible to chemically print colored insignias and logos on the film.) The cost is roughly the same as that of painted plastic.

Automakers, of course, aren't about to shut down their expensive paint plants anytime soon, and until plastic itself comes down in price -- it's at least three times as expensive as the galvanized steel used in cars -- the market for Sollx will be confined to small parts, or cars with small production runs. GE Plastics is so bullish on its potential, though, that the company is already devising ways to make Sollx mimic the odd imperfections of paint, so that a Sollx-coated fender will look indistinguishable from the painted metal body panel next to it. As Margaret Blohm, a research scientist at GE who headed Sollx's development, explains, "We could look better than paint. But right now, we have to look like paint."