Glass, bricks, fabric, machinery: Many products take advantage of advances in cooling technology. At Nissan Motor Co., cool paint is on the horizon. The pigment isn’t meant to make objects fashionable or popular. Instead, it could lower vehicle temperatures both outside and inside—making cars more efficient and occupants more comfortable.
Nissan Research Center manager Susumu Miura’s goal is “cooler cars without consuming energy.” He calls the effect of cool paint “especially important in the [electric vehicle] era.” Cooler cars need less air-conditioning, and lower temperatures relieve the toll from heat on engines and EV batteries.
Nissan collaborated on cool paint with Radi-Cool, a company with locations around the world. Radi-Cool develops technologies for cooling without electricity. One invention is a roof film that brings down the temperature inside buildings. Radi-Cool has also worked with cool paint for structures.
Miura and his team are transferring the know-how to cars. They’ve tested over 100 auto paint samples. They’re currently studying a paint that’s about six times thicker than regular auto paint. It resists salt, chipping, peeling, scratches, and chemical reactions. It also retains its color and repairs well.
According to Nissan Global’s website, “molecules within traditional automotive paint vibrate and generate heat” in sunlight. One type of particle in Nissan’s cool paint reflects sunlight better than other reflective products. Another creates electromagnetic waves that block the Sun’s rays. That action is the “real breakthrough” according to Nissan. It redirects energy from vehicles and into space.
Miura says there are no apparent negative effects to people’s health from the waves emitted by the paint. Such waves are already all around us, he says. They come from power lines, cell phones, laptops, hair dryers, and more.
Nissan tests cool paint on vehicles at a Tokyo airport. The vehicles cruise the treeless tarmac, looking like ordinary cars and vans. But they feel much cooler to the touch than others out in the blazing sunlight. The cool paint lowered car roof temps by 22° Fahrenheit. Interior temps dropped by 9°, Nissan says.
Right now, cool paint comes only in white, a color known to be reflective. But Miura’s team hopes eventually to offer other colors too.
Cool paint could do more than save energy and make people more comfortable. It could offer much needed heat relief to those who serve communities by working mostly out of their cars, vans, and trucks—like bus drivers, EMS personnel, and police. Now that’s cool.
Why? Advances in technology can help relieve human discomfort and allow people to better steward God’s Earth.
