A world premiere without the bright lights: BMW is the first manufacturer to produce a Vantablack car, painted with a light-absorbing paint in the blackest black. But where does this ultimate black come from? And what makes it so special?
7 October 2019
NEAR TOTAL LIGHT-ABSORBING MATERIAL
Vantablack is not actually a color pigment or a paint, but a coating of carbon nanotubes. These have the property of absorbing incident light almost completely. Against a deep black background, objects coated in Vantablack material seem to disappear, as the perception of spatial depth is lost. This is because the human eye perceives shapes coated in Vantablack to be two-dimensional.
"Vantablack works very well on the BMW X6 given its size, distinctive shape and overall appearance."
Inventor of Vantablack
Can you buy Vantablack?
This show car is destined to remain a one-off because of the enormous difficulty involved in making Vantablack paint suitably durable for everyday automotive use. The car paint needed for the world’s blackest black would also be extremely expensive, not to mention questionable in terms of road safety due to its level on the absorption spectrum. However, the technology is set to be used in laser-based sensor arrangements for driver assistance systems and thus in autonomous driving