Renault’s trucking division is showing off its new EV big rigs across Europe at the moment, and they’ve built a shiny promotional vehicle to do it. The Renault E-Tech T has been nicknamed “Diamond Echo,” and it wears a striking electroluminescent paint scheme that got me wondering. Why don’t see see more of this sort of thing?!
Diamond Echo’s real role is to highlight the finer points of Renault’s electric truck technology. As the brand is pushing its electric future, it only makes sense to go for a similarly futuristic paint job. Glowing paintwork is perfectly fitting in that regard. It helps the truck instantly catch the eye, particularly in the dark.
The angular Renault badge was the key influence on the design. The individual segments of the linework are independently controlled, with glowing shapes dancing across the truck’s body in Renault’s demo video.
Renault isn’t the only company to jump on this for promotional purposes, either. Lexus had an RC-F sprayed with Lumilor paint in a daring design some years ago, even going so far as to control the lighting effect with the driver’s heartbeat. It was all to highlight the excitement one feels while driving the RC-F. A cliche concept, but the paint looked great.
Both these concepts used pretty typical colors of green and blue, though some other colors are possible. It was all achieved with Lumilor paint. It’s the most well-known brand of electroluminescent paint and is available in eight shades in total.
If you’re unfamiliar with electroluminescent (EL) paints, they’re basically materials that can be coaxed into glowing under the influence of an electric current. EL paints can be sprayed onto flat or curved surfaces to enable them to glow, emitting light evenly in all directions. EL materials usually emit light in a single wavelength with a soft glow that is pleasant to the eye.
The effect can be striking when applied to a vehicle. Imagine being able to create vinyl-like graphics that actually emit light, and you’ve got the idea.
My one question is why we don’t see more of this out in the wild. Sure, we’re well past the era of sex spec and The Fast and the Furious, but customized cars are still a big deal. I’m surprised every second SEMA build doesn’t have something like this going on. But even then, I want to see more than that. I want every fartcan Civic and slammed Mustang to be dripping in lurid, glowing graphics.
I think I can answer that question myself, though. As explained by Lumilor, their glowing paint is a multilayer system that requires application with professional spray equipment. Controlling multiple sections of Lumilor paint to create flashing or animated effects also requires a certain level of electronics knowledge that isn’t common in the car community. If you think about the quality of the average DIY stereo install, well, that won’t cut it for implementing something like this.
There’s also the simple fact that EL technology just doesn’t put out that much light. You’ll see demos focus on dark rooms or night scenes, because that’s where EL looks best. Even in dim daylight, it can be virtually invisible.
Basically, unless you’ve got plenty of cash to invest in a custom EL paint job, you’re probably not getting this on your ride. With that said, if you’ve got the resourcefulness and guile of a YouTube chemistry vlogger, you could always try and whip up a dodgy version of your own in your home lab.
Image credits: Renault, Lexus, LumiLor via YouTube screenshot
For those that are less inclined to working with chemical coatings, you can get flexible electroluminescent panels from a variety of places online, that’ll do a similar thing. You’d still need to know how to program an arduino, but there are a lot of references out there for LED control that you could build off of.
Was mostly offline last week. Missed this, so if anyone is still paying attention…
AUTOMAN
“EL materials usually emit light in a single wavelength”
Single color from a spectrum of wavelengths perhaps. This isn’t a coherent laser after all. If it were the speckle pattern would be an interesting touch though.
This. I’ve ridden a bike trail where they embedded EL material into the surface so it glows in the dark. The first time I rode it I thought it wasn’t working because I couldn’t see it. I discovered that you have to shut your lights off and let your eyes adjust for a little while before it can even be seen. Super cool once you do that, but if there’s any light around it just disappears. A mostly full moon will wash it out.
Glowy-car bat-signal activated! Deploy the Amon Tobin “Verbal” video!
Check out those nifty Lambo-alikes rendered in CGI that was crude even by 2002 standards!
(They used Amon Tobin’s music for a couple nifty BMW ads, can’t find ’em though.)
Money, I would do it but my wife stops my silly spending.
Me: Why aren’t we all driving around in glow in the dark cars?
Wife: That sounds incredible obnoxious.
I guess this is not universally appealing.
That truck looks like its straight out of tron… And I love it.
Or you could take a slightly more old-school approach and drill 1659 holes into a classic Beetle’s exterior: Eric Staller’s Lightmobile
Now I wanna paint my car up like Tron
Didn’t Wheeler Dealers do something kinda similar to a Pacer? That thing looked pretty cool!
*dons Doofenschmirtz’s lab coat*
I’m painting the Boltinator 2000 with FLAMES using my homebrew EL paint!
“Curse you! Curse you Perry the Platypus!”
It’s really cool, but can you imagine if there were multiple cars with it on a dark stretch of road? It would be like WWI dazzle camo. You wouldn’t be able to tell where one ended and another began, if they were close together. Like, if one was passing another.
Good point. Perhaps I’m going to show my ADHD addled zillenial hand by trying to support this, but I’m seeing it as an option for the paint (“night glow color” on the order form), with manufacturers agreeing to make their own patterns to prevent that, but you get to pick the color/glow.
Ford could do splinter pattern, Mazda tron lines, Honda hex, etc.
Good point that
Works for Zebras.
Why not? Two and a half words – Batman & Robin.
Oh. Oh. Yeah, that’s a great point. Damn you, Schumacher!
Not sure I get the reference?
The absolute worst Batman movie (as judged not only by the public but also all the main stars and finally the director himself), among other terribleness, featured neon, glow in the dark vehicles and henchmen. Apparently, it was all a plan to sell kids toys!