From the “Inventions We Never ever Asked For” file comes a new glow-in-the-dark vehicle paint, co-created by Nissan Europe and inventor Hamish Scott. According to Nissan, the spray coating absorbs UV energy during the day and then glows for amongst 8 and 10 hours soon after the sun goes down. Want to see it in action? Nissan even has produced a semi-creepy video (embedded at the bottom of this post) of a glowing Leaf electric auto meandering around in the dark. Yeah, prison escapees and chronic speeders must not apply.
Glowing paint is nothing new (and, fortunately, not popular), but what makes this a single special is that the paint includes a “rare organic earth product” referred to as Strontium Aluminate, which allegedly is solid, odorless, and chemically and biologically inert. We ain’t chemists over right here, so we’ll have to take Nissan’s word for it. But that means it is organic!
The paint’s organic chemistry and solar tie-in explains why Nissan decided to put the eerie paint on the homely Leaf and not one thing prettier, like, say, an old 240Z. You see, talking about sun energy acquiring captured by paint offers a handy segue to a discussion of fitting solar panels to your home, which Nissan says is a way to drive the Leaf for free of charge. Of course, “free” implies diverse things to different individuals, and the way we see it, the price you will pay by driving a Leaf—especially one that glows in the damn dark—isn’t worth it.
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Leaf Glower: Nissan Coats Its Oddball EV with New Glow-in-the-Dark Paint [w/ Video]
