As the product itself matures, many manufacturers turn to offer more diverse and customized services, such as Tesla might soon be revealing new cars colours with its berlin gigafactory. For NIO, after the ET5 Europe release time officially revealed by CEO Li Bin, according to an internet source, NIO also reported that they will bring the epoch-making colour-changing sunroof in their future car series.
Why it matters
The color-changing glass roof is seen as a fascinating new technology in the electric vehicle sector. It is often called EC roof in electric vehicle applications. The EC roof is an electrochromic glass roof, already available on Geely’s premium brand Zeekr’s debut model, the Zeekr 001. However, some Zeekr 001 owners protested in late October last year, that the company had been mislead since the electrochromic glass roof they had paid for as an option was blue, rather than the gray and black hue Zeekr had previously showed. According to @碳粉说电池不胖, a Weibo Blogger from China who has been following NIO for a long time, points out that NIO is Research EC Glass Roof. The post also comes with a photo of NIO’s venture capital arm, Ambilight. During the last four years, Ambilight has applied its technology in mass-market products such as car sunroofs/roofs, anti-glare mirrors, architectural curtain walls, cell phone backshells, and augmented reality glasses.
On Electrochromic materials
In fact, Electrochromic materials are a type of cross-disciplinary technology that has been around for about half a century in academia. Despite its financial potential, it has been challenging to implement on a broad scale due to technical difficulties and prohibitive obstacles. Equipped with EC For roof models, the sunroof can be dark when the weather is fine to reduce excessive sunlight penetration. When natural light is needed in rainy weather, it can be turned to a transparent or light colour, making the interior space brighter.
