New trend of automotive coatings seen from 2019 Auto Show

April 18-25, the 18th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition 2019 (hereinafter referred to as 2019 Shanghai Automobile Exhibition) with the theme of "creating a better life together" was held in Shanghai National Convention and Exhibition Center. The total scale of this auto show is more than 360000 square meters, attracting more than 1000 domestic and foreign well-known enterprises from 20 countries and regions to participate actively, which can be described as a very large industry event in the auto industry. In this huge auto show, the focus of attention is not only automobile brand and model, but also automobile coating. Automobile coating refers to the coating applied to various types of automobile body and parts such as cars, jeeps, buses, trucks, etc., sometimes including some agricultural machinery products such as tractors, combine harvesters, motorcycles, etc., generally referring to the coating used for manufacturing new automobiles, auxiliary materials and vehicle repair coating. New energy vehicles drive the development of automotive coatings. In the huge auto show, new energy vehicles are also the most beautiful part. With the increasing attention to global environmental protection, new energy vehicles are gradually emerging in recent years. The development of new energy vehicle industry is the inevitable trend of social progress and scientific and technological progress. Whether it is the need of environmental protection or the need of consumer cost control, new energy vehicles have obvious advantages over fuel vehicles.

According to statistics, in 2018, after 28 years of continuous growth, China's car market saw its first year-on-year decline, with production and sales down 4.2% and 2.8% respectively, while the new energy vehicle sector continued to maintain a high-speed growth momentum, breaking through million sales volume in the whole year, with production and sales up 59.9% and 61.7% respectively, and maintained a high-speed growth trend. Due to the continuous decline of fuel vehicles under the pressure of policy, the other side of new energy vehicles has a strong rise under the promotion of the government. It is undeniable that new energy vehicles are making great strides forward. Vehicle body lightweight is the only way to meet the requirements of new energy vehicle range. In recent years, the domestic new energy vehicle market has been heating up, and the Internet enterprises and emerging vehicle manufacturing forces continue to layout new energy vehicles. At present, due to the trend of lightweight of new energy body materials, a variety of materials are applied at the same time, which leads to great differences between automotive coating materials and processes and traditional vehicles. For the mixed body of metal materials, the coating pretreatment materials and processes are quite different from the traditional automobile production, so more application and development are needed. For the non-metallic and metal hybrid body, many coating companies are devoting more efforts to develop low-temperature curing coating system and integrated coating process suitable for multi-material collinear coating. At present, the traditional 3c2b water-based coating system and the compact mid coat free water-based 3wet system are used in the coating of mainstream new energy vehicles. For non-metallic materials such as engineering plastics and carbon fiber reinforced composites, low-temperature coatings and coating processes are needed.

With the rapid development of new energy vehicles and the continuous increase of market sales, the coating industry also needs to speed up its pace. In addition to considering the color and performance index, it is also very important for coating manufacturers to adapt to the vehicle type and comfort. Automotive coatings are used in the interior and exterior of automobiles. As automobiles become more and more complex, of course, coatings also need to keep up with the development of technology. In the era of new energy vehicles, PPG also seized the opportunity to establish a new mobility business team and focus on the field of new energy vehicle coatings. PPG has already begun to invest and prepare in these directions, and even set up a new business team about automatic and electric vehicle coating in PPG - mobility business team. Automotive OEM and touch up paint market is broad. Intelligent coating systems for emerging technologies such as electric and autonomous vehicles are driving the development of the automated OEM market. From a large perspective, the automotive paint market is mainly divided into two parts, new car paint (OEM) market and repair paint market. Among them, the development trend of domestic automobile OEM coating is closely related to domestic automobile sales. The sustainable development of automobile industry will directly promote the demand growth of automobile coatings. In 2018, China's automobile sales volume reached 28.081 million, which is a potential development space for the automobile industry, and also brings a huge business opportunity for the OEM market. Under the trend of stable growth of automobile production and sales scale and ownership, the consumption of OEM coating and repair coating in China will continue to increase in the future, which will also promote the further development of China's automobile coating industry. With the continuous development of the global transportation industry, as OEM manufacturers choose these coatings to protect their OEM parts from corrosion and improve their durability, the demand for OEM coatings is expected to increase. In addition, the technical progress in the field of OEM coating promotes the demand for OEM coating.

The color constitutes the most beautiful scenery in the auto show. The color trend in the auto industry is also one of the most concerned topics in the industry. As we all know, the reflectance of different colors of automotive paint will affect the vehicle identification in different environments. For example, black or dark paint is more difficult to identify when driving at night, and leads to a higher incidence of traffic accidents. In order to gain an advantage in color, some large enterprises also spend a lot of energy to develop coating products. Recently, based on more than 10 years of color services in China's automobile manufacturing industry, Nippon, in combination with color research in many fields such as clothing, food, housing and transportation, has put forward four major directions of consumption, namely, industrial manufacturing, emerging consumption, biotechnology, and cultural entertainment, such as smart, flexible, health, fan, etc., and used automobile weather resistant materials and processes to express the color aesthetic trend of future automobile manufacturing. Some other large enterprises, such as BASF, PPG and so on, also carry out in-depth analysis of car color. The control of color trend determines the application effect of paint on automobiles, which is not only related to automobile sales, but also an issue that should be considered as a paint enterprise. BASF paint is well versed in the trend of materials and colors, and predicts which color will play an important role in the future automobile market. Every year, the designers of the paint department will extensively investigate and deeply analyze the global trends and cultural changes that will affect the color of automobiles in the next three to five years, which is also to innovate the paint products and technologies in line with the development of the automobile industry.

With the diversification of automobile consumer groups, the demand for body color is more personalized. In order to improve their competitiveness, many car companies are more "bold" in the use of body color, and there are countless new colors every year. In addition, the state has allowed the modification of the body color, so the demand for automotive after-sales coating is also increasing. In the future, color customization services in the field of touch up paint will also be popular. Consumers can choose their favorite colors on some platforms, and then go to relevant stores for construction. This also requires the coating industry to adapt to the development of consumption and constantly improve the level of technology research and development to provide more intelligent and personalized coating services.