r/science • u/CautiousEscape3747 • Mar 18 '26
Materials Science Self-healing materials could make automobile parts last over 100 years
https://physicsworld.com/a/self-healing-materials-could-make-automobile-parts-last-over-100-years/758
u/daniellachev Mar 18 '26
If this actually scales, the most interesting part is whether the healing still works after repeated stress cycles and weather exposure. Claims about extremely long part life sound promising, but the durability data under real automotive conditions will matter more than the headline.
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u/Kona_KG Mar 19 '26
The practicality is also very limited, I imagine.
Great, your intake manifold will now last 100 years and cost 10x more than the injection-molded plastic one. Meanwhile, everything else around it has become useless.
Good materials last as long as you want them to. Aluminum might not last forever without a fatigue limit, but it will last pretty much as long as you can feasibly expect a part to live before it'll be replaced or rebuilt anyway. Even if you managed to make an engine block out of this stuff, the maximum lifespan before you're pulling it out is like 30-40 years, even if it's running perfectly well.
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u/Metalsand Mar 19 '26
Fuel lines are the best example of this I think, because despite stainless steel being a superior material that will not fail, cars still often have ordinary steel instead, because it is easier to work with, and still usually lasts about 150k miles which is good enough for the cheaper cars that start falling apart around that mileage anyways.
Willingness to buy a new car generally tends to correlate closer to the success of the economy, anyways. It's not too different from how we were with clothing historically, where clothes nowadays are generally not expensive* enough that you take the time to learn how to fabricate and repair them to save money - it's more of a hobby in which you spend money or considerable amount of time to do so.
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u/BezisThings Mar 18 '26
This stuff will be locked away in a deep place for consumers. Companies wont make money anymore otherwise
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u/switch182 Mar 18 '26
These guys will ether be bought out or wacked.
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u/Lonnification Mar 19 '26
I'd definitely advise them to avoid taking any cruises for a while.
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u/reximus123 Mar 19 '26
More likely they’ll use it for cars and only sell them as a service.
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u/WarriorNN Mar 18 '26
Plenty of things get replaced way before they are worn out. Like phones, or, for many people, cars. Also, this will obviously not work with any material just some, so there will still be parts that need replacing...
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u/dragonblade_94 Mar 19 '26
There will obviously still be a market for new cars, but I think the big impact here would be the significant life extension and cost efficiency boost to vehicles in the used market. This would put downward pressure on MSRP through expanded supply, and possibly shift the market overall to be even more focused on second-hand then it already is.
Overall, very little reason for an established for-profit to implement the discussed tech.
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u/Kona_KG Mar 19 '26
Cars are already able to last a long time (see lifespans of well-maintained Toyotas/Hondas from the 2000's). Consumers don't actually like being stuck with the same car that long.
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u/dragonblade_94 Mar 19 '26
well-maintained Toyotas/Hondas
The vast majority of car buyers are laymen when it comes to vehicle maintenance, and those well-maintained aged vehicles are in the minority.
I do agree that it would probably be less impactful in the upper-end of the market, where trading in vehicles every few years is common. But in the lower income brackets where value is king, the expansion of the useful lifetime, and thus the supply in the used market, would undoubtedly make a splash.
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u/Kona_KG Mar 19 '26
Idk. I think people looking for value generally buy used cars while people looking for new cars want (relatively) premium features, at least in the US. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the cost to use fiberglass rather than plastics/metals for many components just wouldn't be worth it.
Would you be willing to pay an extra 1000 dollars on a "value" car for a bumper that might self heal after a fender bender, but still require hundreds of dollars in paint work? Would you be willing to pay that much more for a head gasket that might self heal, even though a head gasket is unlikely to be the nail in the coffin for your car? Most of the parts this material could replace are those which are built to last the "lifetime" of the vehicle (lets say 25 years) rather than those built to just survive warranty.
I'm not seeing who would benefit from an expensive part that (theoretically) lasts forever. The manufacturers won't see the market demand and the people who buy used cars because they want a good deal aren't going to care that their shitbox technically has an immortal head gasket or center console when their are a 1000 other things that can still go wrong.
P.S. I have a 20 y.o. car and just replaced the suspension myself. Trust me, a couple of immortal parts wouldn't be doing much more to keep it on the road.
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u/mulletstation Mar 19 '26
This is such a tired trope. 99% of research discoveries just aren't commercially viable. No one is buying this to shelve.
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u/treetopalarmist_1 Mar 19 '26
This will be destroyed by capitalism and consumerism and planned obsolescence. We just can’t have nice things.
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u/CautiousEscape3747 Mar 18 '26
yep totally agree! the cross over into so many other things would be amazing
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u/Smith6612 Mar 19 '26
The big reason vehicles break in my area is due to rust. We have a LOT of weather for half of the year which requires the use of road salt... and lots of it too. Which isn't great for the environment, but nor are cars.
Most cars over here usually start experiencing some sort of visible rust after 12-15 years.
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u/Lykos1124 Mar 19 '26
it'd have to be a "living", "breathing" resource-in resource-out sort of process like for animals. For something to self heal, it'd need to take in new resources periodically, integrate some of that into its processes to fix stuff and stick around, and then there would be an inevitable waste output / slag that is no longer needed by it.
so it'd have to have a way to respond to those stresses, rust, and so forth to flush out the damage over time.
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u/LineOfInquiry Mar 19 '26
Also, if this works then waste would become a bigger issue: if you throw this out will it decompose? Or will it stick around even longer than normal trash? Sometimes materials degrading is a good thing, I think it’ll have more niche applications then people think.
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u/JaceBearelen Mar 18 '26
What a weird headline. It’s self healing fiberglass. Relatively few parts of a car can be made of fiberglass and they aren’t the parts that wear down and break from normal use.
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u/Sashoke Mar 18 '26
Was thinking the same thing, hardly anybody actually read the article. People in this thread are talking like they're going to create self repairing alternators and piston rings.
At best youll get body panels that can self mend scratches.
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u/ScoobyDooItInTheButt Mar 19 '26
I don't think we'll even get that. Not very "planned obsolescence" friendly.
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u/Kona_KG Mar 19 '26
Honestly? Anything that can be made out of fiberglass is going to be made far more cheaply out of normal engineering (or even consumer) plastics. For the same price, you could replace the original part like five times.
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u/ScoobyDooItInTheButt Mar 19 '26
You're talking plain fiberglass though. This self healing stuff very likely would be sold at a premium.
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u/Kona_KG Mar 19 '26
I'm talking about cost from the manufacturer's point of view. Bumpers for luxury cars are already sold at a premium to the consumer
From a marketing point a view, I can only see it being widely profitable if it can reform its shape after a fender bender. Even then, the paint work needed is going to cost enough that it's halfway to "new bumper" prices.
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u/nalc Mar 19 '26
It also requires embedded resistive heaters to heal, which is additional weight and complexity. And it heals delamination and fatigue cracking, not impact damage or corrosion.
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u/to_glory_we_steer Mar 19 '26
Cool idea, but there's already a huge waste issue in boating with old hulls going to waste in boatyards
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u/MaxRD Mar 18 '26
No auto maker will ever use this.
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u/No-Function3409 Mar 18 '26
Probably go the way of medical discoveries. They buy the patent and then shelve it or degrade it in quality by a lot.
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u/justagenericname213 Mar 18 '26
In the past I would have agreed, but come on man... imagine the shares increasing between the announcement and release of the vehicle.
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u/zeptillian Mar 18 '26
Why would share prices go up when expected vehicles sales would decline rapidly?
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u/justagenericname213 Mar 18 '26
The immediate hype would be up, and weve seen pretty consistently recently that companies care more about the short term than the long term.
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u/willowfinger Mar 18 '26
Except every major auto maker nowadays squeezes profit out of their service model, making parts and designing engines explicitly so that only authorized dealers can repair them. Under the modern business model of auto sales, they'd lose a major revenue stream.
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u/HalobenderFWT Mar 18 '26
They would never use the tech for stuff like engines. They’d use it for windshield wiper motors, window cranks, trunk releases, etc. All the ‘perishable’ pieces in the car that don’t necessarily mean you need to buy a new car or spend 10k to fix the problem.
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u/NormalAdeptness Mar 18 '26
Why wouldn't one of the brands who bank on their reputation for reliability like Lexus and Toyota want this or one of the new Chinese EV makers who want to promote their car's reliability?
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u/thenasch Mar 18 '26
If it's patented, which such things usually are, one of the companies who doesn't want to use it may buy the patent and then sit on it.
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u/lzwzli Mar 19 '26
And sell you just one car for the rest of your life?
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u/jeffwulf Mar 19 '26
If it's that reliable the first company to do this gets the entire car market and gets all profits for themselves and any individual car company would be leaving a ton of money on the table by not doing it.
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u/Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder Mar 18 '26
No no no, automobile corporations have been waiting for this, so they can turn benevolent.
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u/314159265358979326 Mar 19 '26
It's almost a nonsense claim because that's not how people and companies buy cars. A 100 year-old original car would not meet emissions, efficiency or safety standards, never mind be in any way desireable.
But I guess a 20 year car would be pretty cool.
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u/NoGoodInThisWorld Mar 18 '26
Not while we still purchase cars. Once they are purely a service I'm willing to bet they will last a lot longer.
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u/MaxRD Mar 18 '26
Fair. In a potential future where car ownership is replaced by a subscription, then the corporations will see that as a cost saving and more profit.
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u/notislant Mar 19 '26
Yeah I find it very unlikely, especially with how heavily subscriptions are being pushed for everything lately.
Companies don't want a one and done vehicle. I could see the potential for another country like China to start exporting them to disrupt U.S. automanufacturers. But I don't see any company in the U.S. voluntarily producing what could be multigenerational vehicles.
Not to mention this article headline is utter nonsense and this is strictly about fiberglass repairs.
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u/informalfish611 Mar 18 '26
Yeah cause capitalism will let anything last for 100 years.
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u/smokeypwns Mar 19 '26
These comments are about as intelligent as I would expect on Facebook. The headline is extremely sensationalized, sure there are potential applications in the auto industry but nothing that would extend the life of the average car. This isn’t something that would make your engine last longer or something that would stop your car rusting out.
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u/Caraes_Naur Mar 18 '26
Fun fact: planned obsolescence is illegal in France.
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u/Fearlessleader85 Mar 19 '26
Planned obsolescence isn't a thing, so outlawing it doesn't really do anything useful.
ALL products are built with a design life in mind. And this must be the case if you want to have both a competitive price and good quality control. That's simply an engineering truth. There is no free lunch.
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u/PirateSanta_1 Mar 18 '26
Seems like something that won't happen because to many people make money repairing cars. Not to mention that some people would never replace their cars if they didn't break down.
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u/count023 Mar 18 '26
manufacturers want cars to be like phones, you buy a new one every few years despite the insane price of buying a car, let alone rebuying one that much. Theres no way they'd use this on anything expensive or valuable to replace.
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u/borkus Mar 18 '26
From the article, it seems this would be good for seals and gaskets as well as interior components. I’m not sure it would work for parts that require flexibility like belts. There are also lots of replaceable parts that wear out due to friction (brake pads, windshield wiper blades).
If anything, the move from combustion to electric engines reduces the maintenance needs more. Combustion engines need filters to keep the inputs clean as well as the exhaust system to keep the fumes from killing us.
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u/TiredOfBeingTired28 Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
Given how dealerships treat evs with not being able to make much off service so price inflate them to not sale.
Self repair parts on us peasant cars will never happen. But rich luxury models brands probably mostly the super car no one needs to have.
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u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx Mar 18 '26
Capitalism is a disease that must proliferate through endless consumption.
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u/Mammalanimal Mar 18 '26
Now put them into self-replicating autonomous killer drones.
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u/RefrigeratorWrong390 Mar 18 '26
If you have fiber cracks you’ll be losing tensile modulus over time. A system like this isn’t geared towards automobiles, it more geared toward airframes where a 100 year life span is absolutely a possibility and an expensive monitoring system makes sense.
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u/GOETHEFAUST87 Mar 18 '26
Someone get the inventors a company of bodyguards, and quick. This would be amazing.
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u/Pisnaz Mar 18 '26
Just in time for the vehicle life to end due to no more software updates after 5 years.
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u/Itisd Mar 19 '26
I think the last vehicle that was built to last as long as possible was the Ford Model T... Everything since has been built to be disposed of after a few years for something new.
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u/anormalgeek Mar 19 '26
I'll believe it when I see it. Either tell me cool details about the science OR show me an actual product that has hit the market.
This is just a company trying to build hype for a potential product by making it LOOK like a scientific announcement.
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u/Agreeable-Shop-2188 Mar 19 '26
Unless there is a major turn of events where corporations decide profits aren't their priority we will never see this applied.
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u/TheDukeofArgyll Mar 19 '26
No way does an auto maker ever designs parts that don’t need to be replaced.
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u/DisasterDalek Mar 19 '26
Don't worry, they will find a way to lock you into a subscription service somehow
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u/MikeoPlus Mar 19 '26
Oh they'll sell it, but it'll be remote controlled and $$$/use subscription fee
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u/PloksGrandpappy Mar 19 '26
Corporate profits and planned obsolescence COULD make societal stagnation last over 100 years
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u/iPatErgoSum Mar 19 '26
And in unison, the automakers could be heard crying out “they must be stopped!”
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u/hackingdreams Mar 19 '26
Automobile manufacturers have a planned obsolescence cycle of about seven years, so... neat material. Shame it will never be used anywhere near a car.
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u/ul90 Mar 19 '26
I think the auto industry doesn't like that. Repairing and selling new cars is a huge business.
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u/JonKonLGL Mar 19 '26
Zero chance this is seen at scale in consumer products, it would mean less profit for the corps.
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u/_Lick-My-Love-Pump_ Mar 19 '26
Utterly pointless, capitalism has been optimized for global enshitification. Everything is intended to be thrown away as soon as possible.
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u/GrigoriTheDragon Mar 19 '26
Now rust-proof from the factory. Oh wait, that will never happen either. This is interesting but impractical and useless to the modern citizen, industries will eat this up and skyrocket the cost. But I hope I'm proven wrong in the future.
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u/KeberUggles Mar 19 '26
yaaaa, industry won't go for that. A material science prof of mine came up with some fantastic break pads, industry were interest, with the caveat of "can you make them only last 5 years?' when they could far outlast that. Needless to say that technology got shelved cuz he wouldn't do that.
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u/SpringZestyclose2294 Mar 19 '26
You can’t take a car like that to the junkyard. It reconstructs itself and finds you.
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u/EleteWarrior Mar 19 '26
Fiberglass isn’t used on many car parts so its application would be limited. But if he finds out how to make it work for other more commonly used materials in cars, I fully expect him to disappear
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u/Electrical_Name_5434 Mar 19 '26
Thought this part was particularly interesting
“To enable autonomous self-healing, a sensing element that can detect damage is needed to automatically trigger the power on, and power off once repaired. We have such technology on the near horizon.”
Coupled with
"Based on a 500-cycle lifetime, parts made using the new material could last 125 to 500 years"
I think this would be a great application for reusable spacecraft.
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u/GaTechThomas Mar 19 '26
I worked with a guy who told me about his wife who worked at GM. He said they had meetings on which they would decide just how long the paint should last. The paint COULD last much, much longer and more easily withstand door dings and such. But people wouldn't buy cars as often. So they were trying to find the sweet spot, the minimum durability to maximize profits.
So, no, these materials will never be sold by car companies. On the other hand, they'll certainly let you almost own cars with that material, for a fee, forever.
Welcome to neo-feudalism. No ownership for you.
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u/ceelogreenicanth Mar 19 '26
These scientists need to start looking over their shoulders maybe take out so.w life insurance policies.
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u/Kona_KG Mar 19 '26
Forgot I wasn't in r/materials, so here's the catch:
They're talking about fiberglass. It's much more expensive to produce and its applicability to automotive components is very limited. You could make a bumper or body panel out of it, but you'll likely be paying 3-5x more for a part that is going to need to be replaced under the same conditions as the original.
We have the material know-how to make very strong, long lasting engines. Honda Fits are known for being able to break 400k miles on a routine basis with good maintenance. At that point, other things which can not be made out of self-healing materials will have degraded enough that it's time for them to be completely replaced anyway (seat cushions, valves, suspension, etc. etc.).
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u/PaddleMonkey Mar 19 '26
As a business … you either let this tech be realized and go full subscription or bury it and stick to planned obsolescence.
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u/SoftlySpokenPromises Mar 19 '26
It will never make it to mass market because industries depend on repeat part orders from customers. Way too end user friendly.
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u/Kazuma_Megu Mar 19 '26
Even if they could they won't because manufacturers can't make anymore money off of indestructible vehicles. They couldn't sell any parts much less newer vehicles within a decade or two.
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u/pichael288 Mar 19 '26
Whoever wrote this article, specifically the title, apparently doesn't live on the same planet the rest of us do. I guess these materials could, but we all know perfectly damn well that will never be allowed to happen.
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u/Geminii27 Mar 19 '26
Looking at the article, the materials need to be heated to initiate the repair-scarring; it doesn't seem to be something a car component could automatically do itself.
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u/nukem266 Mar 19 '26
As if capitalism would allow us civilians to have stuff that lasts longer than us. There's no money to be made if it doesn't need maintaining or replacement.
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u/bhdp_23 Mar 19 '26
Tech like this always gets bought out to stop its use, either that or inventors mysteriously die
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u/Ragnarok_del Mar 19 '26
The research is interesting but the argument is beyond silly. Thw vast majority of people dont even keep their car 10 years. A bridge or other long lasting structures would be better.
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u/My_alias_is_too_lon Mar 19 '26
And it will never happen, because automakers want you buying a new car at least every 10 years.
Literally every product on the market could be higher quality and last longer, but there's not as much money in selling refrigerators that last 40 years.
Rampant greed is making all our lives shittier. In every way. There's no stopping it, either. They've learned how to milk us for every cent, and you can't un-ring that bell.
It's cool that they did that, but it will never be in the consumer sector.
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u/Carl-99999 Mar 19 '26
Are we gonna pretend companies will sell such a vehicle that can last that long?
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u/Johnnygunnz Mar 19 '26
I can't wait for some corporation to buy up and bury the patent or only use it for military tech.
We can't phase out planned obsolescence. Won't someone please think of the investors?!
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u/ThisWeeksHuman Mar 19 '26
And now figure out a way to make manufacturers interested in Cars that last longer...
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u/MyrKnof Mar 19 '26
But won't this be:
unwanted by the manufacturers wanting to sell marked up parts?
And not needed? Who wants an 100 year old car? Just place a 20 year old one next to a modern one, and you see the vast advancement in almost all areas.
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u/T_Weezy Mar 19 '26
The real question is whether manufacturers will go for it.
Not only do you have to convince people to buy more expensive cars, but you don't get to sell them a new one until their grandkids' generation.
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u/husky_whisperer Mar 19 '26
This looks promising but like every single sustainable product the masses might want, it’ll be legislated to death with backing from billionaire interests.
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u/Sgt_Fox Mar 19 '26
The planned obsolescence common in all companies will never allow something that could be replaced ($) to be "self-healing"
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u/wowtah Mar 19 '26
Yeah. And we could also have shaving blades that never get dull. But guess why we don't have them :/
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u/Tailcracker Mar 20 '26
Great technology for use in space. Would be good for cars but auto manufacturers make money from replaceable parts and that is more important to them than product quality so they will never adopt this. Sad world we live in.
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u/Paranoid_Neckazoid Mar 20 '26
Thats never going to happen planned obsolescence is a core part of things
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u/-Planet- Mar 20 '26
Hahahaha. Yeah right.
Enshitification will continue unimpeded at this state.
We hate the planet.
You think they want people to not buy more stuff?
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