Nissan Tests Self-Cleaning Paint

Nissan Motor Co. is evaluating a new aftermarket paint coating that repels water, oils, mud and dirt. Applying the material to a car's exterior makes the vehicle virtually self cleaning.

Nissan has been testing the coating in Europe on one of its Note minicars. The company says the material has performed well when exposed to rain, spray, frost, sleet and standing water.

The coating, called Ultra-Every Dry, was developed by Jacksonville, Fla.-based UltraTech International Inc., a maker of oil containment products. Nissan say it has no plan to provide the coating as a standard feature but might offer it as a dealer-installed option.

UltraTech says the material forms a surface texture with patterns of geometric shapes whose peaks, combined with the material's chemistry, repel water and oil. The company currently markets the material for industrial use only and cautions that the coating obscures visbility through glass.

The new coating has significantly better adhesion and abrasion resistance than earlier-generation superhydrophobic technologies, according to UltraTech.

Nissan has experimented with innovative paints before. It introduced a self-healing paint in Japan in 2005 on its X-Trail SUV under the "scratch guard" name. The material consists of an elastic resin clearcoat that slowly gels to fill in minor surface scratches over several days. Nissan debuted the now-discontinued coating, which provides self-healing characteristics for about three years, in the U.S. on the 2008 model Infiniti EX35 crossover.