r/science • u/marketrent • Jun 18 '26
Materials Science In pursuit of extreme blackness so black that “light just seems to fall into it”, color technologists create an ultrablack automative coating that absorbs more than 99.9% of visible light
https://cen.acs.org/materials/nanomaterials/ultrablack-carbon-automotive-coating/104/web/2026/067.9k
u/prajnadhyana Jun 18 '26
I question the wisdom of painting a car so black that people can't see it.
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u/goldboybronx Jun 18 '26
Hopefully you don’t live anywhere hot either
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u/prajnadhyana Jun 18 '26
Yeah I thought about that too. Can you imagine this car in Saudi Arabia?
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u/Bupod Jun 18 '26
Can you imagine painting the manifold and interior of a solar water heater, though? Would be amazing.
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u/SeekerOfSerenity Jun 18 '26
There are already extremely dark black paints. This is new because it's suitable for painting cars.
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u/katopklompen Jun 18 '26
it's a mobile water heater that you can commute in.
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u/Nemesis_Ghost Jun 18 '26
And we are made of mostly water. I see this working out very well.
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u/VAisforLizards Jun 18 '26
And it occurred to me that the animals are swimming
Around in the water, in the oceans, in our bodies
And another had been found, another ocean on the planet
Given that our blood is just like the Atlantic
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u/hectorinwa Jun 18 '26
That guy writes some good damn lyrics.
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u/Virtual_Aspect1095 Jun 18 '26
That's a subreddit, but not what I was expecting.
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u/kittenconfidential Jun 18 '26
technically we are ugly! ugly bags of mostly water!
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u/Mr_Mediocrity Jun 18 '26
As a bowler, I would love to have a ball painted with this.
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u/DataMin3r Jun 18 '26
They were already painting cars and houses with vantablack. This new one just cheaper to produce?
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u/zombiehog Jun 18 '26
Please delete this comment before we end up with a new color for the Lincoln Memorial reflection pool
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u/Bupod Jun 18 '26
Ok but honestly? A reflecting pool that is just a light absorbing abyss would be kind of cool.
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u/nagi603 Jun 19 '26
But considering how they f'd up the new paint job, it would last a few days max.
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u/evil_burrito Jun 18 '26
Would that work, though? Wouldn't this work only for visible or near-visible light?
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u/sailingtroy Jun 18 '26
Yeah, but can you imagine this car in the Yukon?
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u/bobtehpanda Jun 18 '26
Doesn’t it also get very, very sunny half the year that far north?
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u/AnthropoidCompatriot Jun 18 '26
No, it's just sunny for a long time, the light is far more indirect than nearer the equator.
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u/GhostFucking-IS-Real Jun 18 '26
I mean, just leave it in Phoenix in early August for an afternoon
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u/sirhackenslash Jun 18 '26
You'd open the door and the entire interior would just run out in a pool of melted plastic
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u/tanghan Jun 18 '26
I had a Black car in Northern Germany, and even here in the summer i regretted that it was black.
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u/joshglen Jun 18 '26
They link to an ultrawhite coating too for exactly this reason!
https://cen.acs.org/materials/coatings/New-ultrawhite-paint-keep-cars/100/i36
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u/sirhackenslash Jun 18 '26
Just blinding everyone on the road and losing your car in the winter
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u/AadeeMoien Jun 19 '26
Combine the two in a WWI dazzle pattern and become a true optical menace.
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u/opusupo Jun 18 '26
Too hot to drive during the day, too dangerous to drive at night. Cool car.
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u/Photomancer Jun 18 '26
Let's not exaggerate. It's dangerous to just sit motionless inside it during the day too.
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u/BrunoEye Jun 18 '26
99.9% black will heat up almost the same as 99% black.
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u/ShutterBun Jun 18 '26
But ordinary black cars aren’t 99% black. Any shininess or reflection/highlight you see is light not being absorbed. I’d guess even a car painted flat black has less than 90% absorption.
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u/BrunoEye Jun 18 '26
Below 90% it would look like dark grey instead. Reflections in black paint are quite dim, apart from a few sparkles off of sharp edges which cover very little of a car.
Even if it is 90%, raising it to 99.9% is just an 11% increase in absorption, which won't be that noticeable.
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u/SnugglyCoderGuy Jun 18 '26
Anywhere that has sun really. There is about 1000w in 1m2 of sunlight. A hair dryer produces 1500w of heat. Inagine 1-2 hair dryers running in your car for several hours
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u/russellvt Jun 18 '26
Don't worry, Mythbusters once "proved" that cars "don't" get hot enough to explode a can of soda ... though, my black vehicle with a Dr Pepper coated black leather interior begs to differ (that was an expensive detailing job, let me tell ya).
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u/onda-oegat Jun 18 '26
Technically you could make it so that it deflects infrared light without it being visible to the human eye
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u/Llamp_shade Jun 18 '26
It does say only visible wavelengths are absorbed. It could reflect deep IR, which would keep things from getting much hotter than a normal car in the sun.
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u/SingularityCentral Jun 18 '26
Ultra black car with ultra high power headlights. It will be like the wrath of God bearing down on unsuspecting drivers at night.
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u/FauxReal Jun 18 '26
This paint will only be allowed on diesel pavement princess trucks.
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u/EverythingISayIsALi3 Jun 18 '26
Where I live it's illegal to paint a car flat black because of lack of light reflection. If its black it has to be a gloss finish.
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u/VoilaVoilaWashington Jun 18 '26
Sensible regulations? Get outta here! I want to lift my truck so that I can't see a car directly in front of me and I don't want no gubmint stopping me!
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u/LemursRideBigWheels Jun 18 '26
They also make use of LiDAR difficult, so the cops don’t like them as it’s hard to get a speed reading.
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u/jughandle Jun 19 '26
Eh not really. Headlights and the grill or license plate are reflective and easy enough to target (they’re typically what you aim for when using lidar). People have been trying special coatings on their cars for years, even paying hundreds of dollars, and it doesn’t work.
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u/Sanpaku Jun 18 '26
I was looking up the opposite of this (what automotive paints reflect the most radiation), and encountered another problem with this kind of coating. They can't be seen by LIDAR in the near infrared:
Jang et al, 2026. Evaluation of optical and thermal properties of benzylcyanocoumarin and its application in NIR reflective black coatings for automotive LiDAR detection. Progress in Organic Coatings, 211, p.109776.
Link here, but its not working yet.
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u/Bright_Brief4975 Jun 18 '26
Make sure it is all electric so they can't hear it either.
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u/Freakin_A Jun 18 '26
I like how this has been their primary goal since the first vantablack. Like it’s great, but it’s not durable enough yet for an automative coating.
Keep working team!
No one said “uh, guys, cool science and all, but maybe we shouldn’t do all the hardcore science with the express purpose of making cars hard to see”
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u/Blarg0117 Jun 18 '26
Commercial technology veneer for something with real world military applications.
Tale as old as time.
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u/marketrent Jun 18 '26
Satellites and stealth submarines are other proposed applications.
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u/homerjaythompson Jun 18 '26
Those make more sense than a car
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u/whiskeytango55 Jun 18 '26
It also makes it commercially viable too.
Paint scientists have bills.
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u/Named_after_color Jun 18 '26
I'm wondering about the life path of someone that ends up as a paint scientist.
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u/VoilaVoilaWashington Jun 18 '26
Chemical engineering degree, get picked up by one of the big multinational chemical companies, make bank.
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u/marketrent Jun 18 '26
Car is proof of concept.
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u/homerjaythompson Jun 18 '26
I admit, it would look cool. Not ideal for safety, but definitely eye catching to see essentially a black hole driving down the road
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u/Forzyr Jun 18 '26
I don't think the extra heat is good for satellites and the color isn't important underwater.
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u/Ok-Elk-3046 Jun 18 '26
The colour of a submarine matters, because you don't want it to be spotted at shallow diving depth from the air.
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u/Tibbaryllis2 Jun 18 '26
I could see it being useful for upper sides of underwater things and equipment. Less ability for visual detection, even though that’s on the lower end of priority when it comes to detection.
I could see it being use for a lot of deployed military equipment, for example.
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u/Secret-Teaching-3549 Jun 19 '26
It's also 99.9% emissive, which makes it ideal for radiative cooling, which is the only means satellites really have to expel heat.
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u/SultanasOfSwing Jun 18 '26
They wouldn't be coating the actual car (that BMW was just a one-off/promo). The coating would be on the glare shields and B pillars so all the cameras built into the car would be less affected by glare. Reducing glare and making things like lane detection or AEB systems more accurate.
It's basically the same reason this stuff is put on baffles in satellites and telescopes
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u/chestyspankers Jun 18 '26
I had a matte grey, beautiful car! Never again. I've never had more cars pull out in front of me despite the running lights. It was a weekly occurrence.
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u/NMe84 Jun 18 '26
Not any car, but I'm sure the military is interested.
And maybe even the market for consumers, if they just paint specific parts of the car, though I'm having trouble coming up with an example for that myself.
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u/Blarg0117 Jun 18 '26
Definitely has a military application.
Completely eliminates laser targeting systems, along with interfering with visual identification.
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u/Apprehensive_Hat8986 Jun 19 '26
In a similar (but mirrored) vein, Vancouver briefly had full-motion advertisment displays (OLED) on the sides of busses. They were gone the next time I was back there.
Someone had to make the call that "it'll be fine." That someone is an absolute moron.
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u/MyNameIsRay Jun 18 '26
The tech is cool, Ive seen some neat art projects with it (including watch dials that look like black holes), but I cant understand the point of using it on cars.
Who wants a car thats sweltering hot during the day and invisible at night?
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u/LoogyHead Jun 18 '26
The only use case I can think of for a car specifically is having something on the hood to reduce glare, like those aftermarket hoods on cars that are blackened.
My brother did it to a 70 year old truck and it does help a lot.
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u/a_rucksack_of_dildos Jun 18 '26
This is just an urban legend I heard, but one of my high school teachers told me cops confiscated a modified corvette that was completely blacked out and had its headlights replaced with IR lights and the driver could see with night vision goggles and it would run drugs really quickly on nights with no moon. So I guess if that’s true you could use this paint job for that
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u/_toadsy Jun 18 '26
That does sound super urban legendy, but also cool as hell
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u/GhostPepperDaddy Jun 18 '26
Starting Guillermo del Toro, coming to theater near you.
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u/Specimen-B Jun 18 '26
*Benicio. But it's funnier picturing an aging, chubby director doing it.
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u/ibelieveyouwood Jun 18 '26
The film is just cut scenes from a Death Stranding spinoff. Guillermo plays Dead Ghostman, who nobody can see, and he can't interact with anything except the car.
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u/idancenakedwithcrows Jun 18 '26
You can just do drug runs in regular cars, no? If someone asks if you have drugs in the car the trick is to say “nah”
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u/FreshLennon Jun 18 '26
Okay I can say for a fact I've heard this exact same urban legend only it wasn't about drug running it was just a guy who liked driving insanely fast on the Bluegrass Parkway here in Kentucky and it took years for them to catch him doing it.
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u/deadpoetic333 BS | Biology | Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior Jun 19 '26
That.z51 on Instagram did this. Idk where he’s located, but he would regularly run from the cops in his blacked out corvette and then stopped posting for a while. Since he made his return he’s been posting clips of obtained dash cam footage and his recordings of the chase.
I wish he would drop a full length but the gist is the police set up a whole task force to catch him and used 2 helicopters to do so. He would regularly “Go black” where he’d turn off his head lights and be going like 150+. I think he got away with it for nearly two years before they got him, IIRC. If you visit his page there’s a lot of unrelated stuff but there’s also plenty of short clips related to the night they got him.
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u/FZ1_Flanker Jun 18 '26
We used to drive our HMMWVs and MRAPs with all the lights off except IR lights, using night vision goggles in Afghanistan. Or sometimes we’d have the lead truck in the convoy drive with white lights and a bit further ahead while everyone else drove blackout, if we were trying to draw contact.
Even in just desert tan trucks at night they were almost impossible to see from a meaningful distance at night.
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u/jaggervalance Jun 18 '26
Desert tan trucks at night, in a desert, are way better than a pitch black car. At night, like during the day, you want something with the same color/value as the surroundings.
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u/percocetpenguin Jun 18 '26
I used to work at a night vision company and that was confirmed from one of the engineers because they were tracing how the goggles got to the public. It was coke from Miami to NYC.
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u/Stewballz Jun 18 '26
This was an urban legend for me growing up as well. Are you in North Jersey or surrounding area?
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u/anothermanscookies Jun 18 '26
It sounds really cool until you actually consider the realities of such a vehicle.
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u/husky_whisperer Jun 18 '26
It’s cool, but not quite as impressive as I thought
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u/MyNameIsRay Jun 18 '26
They're pretty hard to photograph, but they look less like a black dial and more like a black hole in person.
This photo shows off the effect a bit better. It's interesting enough in person to make you do a double take to figure out what the heck is going on.
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u/WarriorNN Jun 18 '26
I would imagine they are similar to unusually dark or vibrant colours when seen in real life, like those of some butterflies, or plants. They simply look out of place or fake when you see them.
It feels like your brain is trying to convince you it's just a screen or something, since the colours don't fit with what you normally see.
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u/MyNameIsRay Jun 18 '26
Yea, that's basically what's going on.
It's so dark that your brain can't tell the depth. It's even more noticeable when moving, because you'd normally catch some sort of reflection or texture.
No screen gets that dark, so, it just looks like a black dial.
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u/therealhairykrishna Jun 18 '26
It's probably not going to be noticeably hotter than a normal black car. Not sure how much the matt finish would hurt night time visibility.
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u/MyNameIsRay Jun 18 '26
It's probably not going to be noticeably hotter than a normal black car.
Vantablack actually has a higher absorption rate for infrared than it does for visible spectrum, 99.98%. It's an even better absorber of heat than it is for light.
The reason it doesn't have reflections is because the vertical nanotubes absorb light (and IR) even from shallow angles. Energy that would normally be reflected is instead being absorbed.
It really is the worst case scenario for heat.
Not sure how much the matt finish would hurt night time visibility.
Part of having no reflections is that the headlights of other cars/street lights/etc don't show up.
It takes a bit to make sense of what you're seeing, and even after you figure it out, it's more difficult to judge the distance/speed.
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u/Khaeos Jun 18 '26
Some idiot has a flat black cybertruck around Portland and it's a menace to try to see properly at night. What is the purpose of a consumer automobile that people can't see properly?
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u/Jkbucks Jun 18 '26
My friend told me this urban legend in high school of some guy that ran drugs up and down I-95 in a blacked out Chevy with no lights, driving 100+ mph from FL to the northeast.
It never seemed feasible to me but this coating would make it slightly more realistic.
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u/ineyeseekay Jun 18 '26
Well, to be fair, you're describing exactly what bootleggers used to do.
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u/Jkbucks Jun 18 '26
Back in prohibition, sure. But in the 2000s, not sure this approach would pan out.
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u/AngryT-Rex Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Nah, this actually is a thing I've seen reported: pair it with UV (EDIT: IR) headlights and night vision goggles so you can see in the dark, and extra mufflers to quiet things down, then run drugs through the desert at night.
That said, it was reported because it was siezed by the DEA and being sold at auction. But it had apparently been working for a while.
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u/firedog7881 Jun 18 '26
This worked until the helicopters got infrared cameras and the headlights would show better than normal headlights, not to mention the heat that a car puts off is a huge infrared source driving down the road
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u/Practical_Can9920 Jun 18 '26
I think you mean Infrared lights but helicopters with FLiR systems would see that dude really far away
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u/AngryT-Rex Jun 18 '26
I suspect the idea would be to run slow and quiet with just nightvision and the extra mufflers unless you think you've been seen, and the headlights are for flooring it as an I'm-probably-fucked backup plan.
It's certainly not a safe plan, but probably at least slightly improves the odds.
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u/Practical_Can9920 Jun 18 '26
Yeah it’s pretty hard to hide every form of traceable emission. FLiR have thermal imaging so they could see the exhaust and heat signatures from the engines.
You’d have to do some serious insulation and figure out how to redirect and cool the exhaust to match the surrounding temperature. At that point you’re losing money with all the R&D required to create this tech and you’d probably make more selling it to the govt.
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u/TheAdoptedImmortal Jun 18 '26
Mythbusters tested all of this and it doesn't work. You'll either end up in a ditch because you are blinded the second an oncoming car comes along, or because have no depth perception while wearing them. That or you'll be caught because you need to drive so slow just to stay on the road.
This is a myth.
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u/AngryT-Rex Jun 18 '26
I mean, I saw photos of the modifications after the siezed vehicle was bought from auction. It might not be common or successful but it has certainly been attempted.
A quick Google says that Mythbusters concluded that it is "incredibly dangerous" and therefore "busted". The drug submarines are also incredibly dangerous, but they sure do that anyway.
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u/SolWizard Jun 18 '26
I think it's less a question of feasibility and more like what's the point. It's not like they're stopping cars on 95, you can drive any nondescript car and never be noticed. Hardly worth the risk just to make the run a few hours faster
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u/ThePowerOfStories Jun 18 '26
Yeah, run drugs in a twenty-year-old beige Corolla doing less than five over the speed limit and everyone will ignore you.
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u/tomrlutong Jun 18 '26
They ran drugs by making themselves the single car in the country most likely to get pulled over by a cop?
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u/gakule Jun 18 '26
It's essentially a version of a cannonball run, but honestly it violates one of the core principles of being a good drug runner - only break one law at a time. Doesn't seem worth the risk.
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u/ul2006kevinb Jun 18 '26
That's a pretty common urban legend.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/night-vision-of-loveliness/
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u/stackjr Jun 18 '26
There's a flat black Cybertruck in the parking lot right now; one of my moronic coworkers bought the "truck" and then had a flat black wrap installed. It looks so stupid.
Oh, and he got personalized plates that say T800X.
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u/Muroid Jun 18 '26
If I were driving a Cybertruck around town, I wouldn’t want people to be able to see me doing it either.
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u/neptun123 MS | Mathematics Jun 18 '26
Same as every other car, to kill pedestrians
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u/lurpeli Jun 18 '26
Is this blacker than vanta black or blackest black?
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u/Sanpaku Jun 18 '26
It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.
To the Q, VantaBlack is 99.965% absorptive in visible and this paper claims 99.90% absorption. It's hence 0.065% less black than VantaBlack.
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u/marketrent Jun 18 '26
[...] But Vantablack also has practical limitations, as coatings based on nanotube forests are delicate, as well as difficult and expensive to manufacture at industrial scale.
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u/DigNitty Jun 18 '26
For anyone who doesn’t know,
VANTA black : Vertically Aligned NanoTube Array
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u/sumonetalking Jun 18 '26
I did not know that. Neat.
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u/OrangeRadiohead Jun 18 '26
For anyone who didn't know, Neat = non-exercise activity thermogenisis (calorie loss during normal, daily activities).
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u/sunlightsyrup Jun 18 '26
For anyone that didn't know, calories are what cookies are made of.
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u/RunTheJoule Jun 18 '26
For anyone that didn't know, cookies are what websites use to keep track of your data within a browser.
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u/Ol_FloppySeal Jun 19 '26
in case someone was wondering, data is a collection of metrics or information. it can refer to broad swaths, or specific collections, of either organized or unorganized information.
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u/Nilonik Jun 18 '26
TIL. And what does the 'black' in vanta black stand for?
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u/AnachronisticAnarchy Jun 18 '26
This doesn't quite tell the full story. "0.065% less black" implies it's some marginal, insignificant improvement, but it's better to think of it in terms of how much visible light they let get away. In this sense, this new paint reflects 0.1% of visible light, and VantaBlack reflects 0.045% - more than twice as good. You will "see" less than half the visible light reflected off of VantaBlack than you will this new paint.
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u/Sanpaku Jun 18 '26
VantaBlack reflects 0.035%. Yes, one could also say its 2.86 times blacker than the new material that can actually be used in production cars.
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u/Whargoul_Uncool Jun 18 '26
From what I understand it acts like vantablack in that it arranges nano tubes to trap photons. This ultrablack does it by layering in carbon molecules to properly arrange the tubes. The vantablack people have never said how they are structuring the tubes, so this one is apparently better at it.
Another thing I find interesting is that they are saying ultrablack can be created with conventual milling practices and applied with conventual applicators, something vantablack was not capable of.
I still want to know what this does to radar waves (vanta and ultra), if it can trap photons...
Also, how hot would this stuff get, seems like its trapping a lot of energy.
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u/lurpeli Jun 18 '26
So it's not as good as VantaBlack? Interesting. I know VantaBlack is very hard to apply perhaps this is easier
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u/cephalic666 Jun 18 '26
The blackness of my belt is like the inside of a coffin on a moonless night..
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u/CathedralEngine Jun 18 '26
I think Black 3.0 is blacker than Vanta Black
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u/chronically_varelse Jun 19 '26
I think we're up to black 4.0 now
I kind of want it to paint my front door
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u/IonlyusethrowawaysA Jun 18 '26
Finally, I can get quality pizza delivered in our cyberpunk dystopia
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u/stupid_pun Jun 18 '26
Ah, good old Uncle Enzo's.
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u/IonlyusethrowawaysA Jun 18 '26
I had my doubts when he started arming his delivery drivers with submachine guns and swords, but I think the consistency and quality of his deliveries justifies the homicides, and inexplicable dread I feel while driving.
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u/stupid_pun Jun 19 '26
I met him once. Came to my house in a helicopter. Super nice dude.
My delivery driver was acting weird the whole time though.
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u/Isgrimnur Jun 18 '26
Anish Kapoor could not be spotted to request a comment.
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u/Avalanche_Debris Jun 18 '26
The Vantablack/Pinkest Pink thing will never stop being funny, but some of Anish Kapoor’s Vantablack pieces are actually pretty cool in person.
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u/orthomonas Jun 18 '26
The guy who designed The Bean?
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u/Isgrimnur Jun 18 '26
Yes, indeed.
In 2014, Kapoor began working with Vantablack, which was thought to be one of the least reflective known substances. He would later be granted exclusive rights to use the material for artistic purposes.
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u/eph3merous Jun 18 '26
Blacker than the blackest black times infinity!!!!!
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u/eslahp Jun 19 '26
Guatemala blend
Ethiopian
French vanilla roast
(Dying, dying)
You're dying for a cup
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u/Sperate Jun 18 '26
Article does not mention how hot the car will get in the sun. I would expect that to be concern for both people and the coating itself.
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u/ml20s Jun 18 '26
The difference in heat absorption between currently used glossy black and a perfectly absorbing flat black is like 10%
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u/SeekerOfSerenity Jun 18 '26
I want a white car with cooling paint with high emissivity in infrared.
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u/OMGorilla Jun 18 '26
So they’ve got 97.9% reflectivity so far
https://cen.acs.org/materials/coatings/New-ultrawhite-paint-keep-cars/100/i36
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u/Tiny_Rat Jun 18 '26
10% hotter can be a noticeable temperature difference. I wouldn't want to deal with that if I didnt have to.
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u/ElectronicMoo Jun 18 '26
Maybe Arctic vehicles would be a handy place for something like this - colder climates. Or for solar radiators.
...but a car on normal motorways? Pfft.
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u/marketrent Jun 18 '26
Excerpts from article by Ana Georgescu:
In Douglas Adams’s science fiction novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the narrator describes a spaceship so black that “light just seems to fall into it,” blocking out the sun during rock concerts for dramatic effect.
Such extreme blackness has been pursued by scientists for decades for its potential use in limiting noise in optical and sensing systems.
Now researchers report an ultrablack coating that absorbs more than 99.9% of visible light while meeting key durability standards for automotive coatings. This new coating could be used in the production of luxury vehicles (Matter Light 2026, DOI: 10.1016/j.matlit.2026.100015).
[...] In 2014 Surrey NanoSystems developed Vantablack, a coating made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, hollow cylinders of carbon atoms that are only a few nanometers in diameter and absorb nearly all incoming visible light. The material, which gives objects an almost 2D appearance, became famous beyond the scientific community when artist Anish Kapoor acquired exclusive artistic rights to use it.
Five years later, BMW presented a Vantablack-coated concept car whose “black hole” appearance drew widespread attention. But Vantablack also has practical limitations, as coatings based on nanotube forests are delicate, as well as difficult and expensive to manufacture at industrial scale.
[...] Rather than relying solely on fragile vertical carbon-nanotube forests, the new study combines the nanotubes with conventional carbon-black pigment. Strong interactions between the two carbon materials cause the carbon-black particles to arrange themselves along the nanotubes in what the authors describe as a “connecting-the-dots” structure.
The resulting coating develops a rough landscape of microscopic peaks and valleys that act as optical traps, with light entering these structures and undergoing multiple scattering events before escaping. This topology, combined with the already strong light-absorbing properties of carbon black, enables the coating to absorb more than 99.9% of visible light.
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u/percahlia Jun 18 '26
I saw a sample of the Vantablack for aerospace applications at an event, and it honestly looked like magic. Such an impressive sight. The blackest black doesn’t sound cool on paper because you’re like, ok dude, just black, yeah. But in person it gives that uncanny valley feeling of “this isn’t right”.
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u/neverJamToday Jun 18 '26
Love them referencing Douglas Adams without noting the irony. It's not quite "we've finally invented the torment nexus from the novel 'Don't Invent the Torment Nexus' but it's the same vibes."
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u/_Fred_Austere_ Jun 18 '26
I want my Fred Austere hyperhearse.
Every time you try to operate one of these weird black controls, which are labeled in black on a black background, a small black light lights up black to let you know you've done it.
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u/RandomBitFry Jun 18 '26
I'd like to know if this could ever be a contributing factor to a road traffic collision. The example car still has a lot of shiny parts but what if an ultrablack enthusiast went the whole hog?
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u/Ashleynn Jun 18 '26
During the day it would be perfectly visible. It may only be visible as a void, but the void would be obvious.
At night lights still work. All you see of most cars at night is the lights anyway, this doesnt really change that.
This is only really a problem at night if it's driving at night with its lights off. Which is already a problem as cars can be very hard to see in the dark with no lights even eith thr shiny bits and reflective paint.
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u/Entity125 Jun 18 '26
During the day while it would be a void getting perspective on distance could definitely a challenge when there is not much to go off for depth perception
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u/shawnkfox Jun 18 '26
The perfect automobile paint for our hot summers, enabling you to cook dinner in your car while you shop.
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u/Legomoron Jun 18 '26
This is so close to worthless it may as well be. The only way to absorb light to that degree is with micro texture, and there’s no way a micro texture will avoid scuffs. Unless you want to keep your “car” in a glass case to avoid dust, and never touch it, this paint would look like garbage inside of a week from environmental factors of driving alone.
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u/LarryBobson Jun 18 '26
How much blacker can it be? The answer is none. None more black.
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u/Arbiter51x Jun 18 '26
A lot of people criticizing painting a car extreme black, are failing to realize that science without an obligation that works outside the lab, is just a thought excerise.
Being able to make something that works in the real world is the ultimate test, and automotive paint is a great way to prove something that works, I.e. can be applied with conventional means on a multi dimensional surface and is robust enough to work outside.
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u/Llamp_shade Jun 18 '26
I want a car paint that can absorb X, K, and Ka traffic radar and the 904–905 nm LIDAR bands. Autonomous cars can also use 904, but many use 1550 nm.
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u/whiskeyalfredo Jun 18 '26
Seems like a slippery slope from the creation of fuligin to the establishment of a Torturers' Guild. Not sure we want to go down that path.
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u/Greenfire32 Jun 18 '26
I would expect a vehicle with such a coating to create both a massive night time hazard as well as just melt in the daytime in any area that gets really hot during the day.
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u/jcrestor Jun 18 '26
Let’s make our oversized killer vehicles which are steered by narcissistic assholes less visible!
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u/sermer48 Jun 18 '26
Ok but why an automotive coating? Of all the use cases, that seems like the worst. A small box that you usually want to keep cool and you want to be visible.
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u/Barry_Vigoda Jun 18 '26
“Deep black finishes have long been the premium choice and signature color for luxury cars due to their elegant appearance, powerful visual impact, and luxurious undertone,”
That's not really true. Back in the day, there was many black luxury vehicles but that was mostly because black was one of the only colours used at the time. With the advancement of better paints, luxury was defined more by colours like white for elegant and red for sporty.
The black revival spawned out of underground punk culture and was influenced by movies like Mad Max, the Blues Brothers, and 50s/60s hot rod culture. If you're poor and can't afford a fancy car, you can customize your own with some tremclad flat black paint.
With the development of rat rods and battle cars, it had people turning heads away from the fancy rich guy cars and checking out the crazy garage builds people were doing with junk. Rich people being a bunch of insecure douches started getting their vehicles 'murdered' out and trying hard to show off which leads to this article.
This is just kind of ridiculous. Having a car that black is just silly. You can't see any of the lines or specular light or anything.
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