Lexus Structural Blue, the car you can't repair?

I doubt AutoZone will be stocking touch-up paint for rock chips, but it does have a paint code- 8YO. As you pointed out, a minor fender bender might "total" the car given the unique paint process. Wonder what the cost of the paint job is? $5,000, $15,000?

Color is gorgeous, but it looks like a team working on another project selected the interior colors (emphasis on the plural- 3 in all).

 

It doesn't even look special. Looks pretty basic, actually.

 

That doesn't make sense to me. How is it 100% if it's not a mirror? The color that we see is the wavelength of that color reflected back off that object. So the blue car would reflect back only blue wavelengths of light when sun (white light) hits it. The rest of the visible light spectrum is absorbed (violet, red, green, etc). It can't be 100%...what am I missing?

 

I don't know where the 50% and 100% reflection claims came from, but I stumbled across a technical article last week when I first learned of this "color." Apparently, there is no blue pigment in the "color." It is really a clear nano-structure that bends and filters light. My simplistic understanding of the technology behind structural color is somewhat like a wrap that happens to get produced with a paint gun.

Here is a video in the technical article that explains the science in mostly layman's terms, but I still don't fully understand it. I will comment that the video, which gives motion to a Morpho Butterfly specimen in a case, is the best illustration of what the color will look like in real life. Stagnant press photos of a parked car do not do it justice. The car must be seen in motion to be fully appreciated:



Here is a link to the technical article: https://asknature.org/strategy/wing-scales-cause-light-to-diffract-and-interfere/#.WlFtiiMrK1c

 

Yeah their statement makes no sense. They must use a scale specific for paint finishes to try to rate how much shine it has. Nothing other than the color white can reflect white light near 100%. Maybe they shined blue light on blue paint and got nearly 100% back and call it 100%?

Anyway, I think this material would be interesting in person. It absorbs nearly all light...

http://www.cnn.com/videos/style/2017/03/30/watch-all-light-disappear-into-this-material-orig-tc.cnn

 

Yes it can be repaired , other than the special pigment which is costly, it sprays no different than a regular basecoat clear coat. Ppg has a factory pack color available for it. I am a painter by trade. I hope to see on and paint one. There is not multi layering involved. Not a three stage or even a quad stage, just a regular old style base clear with a spendy formula that comes in a factory pack from Ppg .

 

Good marketing. Meh looking.

 

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/so-yeah-i-put-a-deposit-down-for-a-new-car.627988/page-2#post-147413423