BMW unveils “blackest black” car sprayed with Vantablack | Hacker News Reader

BMW unveils “blackest black” car sprayed with Vantablack

dezeen.com

17 pointsbookofjoe28 comments

This isn't a real car that will be sold, y'all. It's conceptual art. AFAIK Vantablack is so fragile that it will be damaged just by touching it; forget about water.

The article seems to indicate that this is a real product, and that they are using some “sprayable” version of the pigment.

This also seems to intentionally be only "99%" non-reflective, so there's still a small semblance of 3D-ness on this car (judging from the photos)

It's like, how much more black could this car be? And the answer is none. None more black.

1% more.

So essentially you're only seeing the silhouette of the car and can't really observe it as a 3d object? Sounds like a fabulously bad idea.

It's a concept design / art piece. Vantablack is highly carcinogenic and fragile. However, this thing would make a great solar oven.

According to Wikipedia, Vantablack absorbs visible light, converts it and dissipates it as heat.

Can some materials engineer/physicist chime in and talk about its impact to warming relative to “regular” car paints/coatings?

I can’t imagine it being good for the environment.

The energy conversion is the same as in regular black but it absorbs 99% instead of 95% or whatever. That's 4% more heating in the sun, so no appreciable difference.

The windows might be too large and the grille too small to be really future-proof design wise.

I mean seriously, who buys such ugly pieces of shit? This looks like a gaming PC case, which everyone agrees you are not allowed to like if you are over 16.

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the good taste of the American public."

I forgot who said that, but...he was right. There are enough Americans w/ bad taste to make the 4-door "SUV coupe" an actual market segment. God help us all.

H.L. Mencken

I like the quote that says "putting a paint like that on a conventional car lacking a distinctive design would probably detract from it in some way" as if their angry crossover with an oversized grille is distinctive from any of the other 13 other angry crossovers with oversized grilles.

I do wonder what it would look like on one of those 70s landbarges though; feel like they could wear it well

"I put on the cloak... the hue fuligin, which is darker than black, admirably erases all folds, bunchings and gatherings so far as the eye is concerned, showing only a featureless dark."

It took longer than I expected for a Torturer to show up...

Great, now owners can know beyond any doubt that their car is the hottest one in the parking lot

I worry any owners will develop a pathological hatred of specks of dust.

I'm worried more about the safety. How are you supposed to see it in the dark?

Head lights?!

How do headlights work?

Light leaves the bulb, reflects off some surface into your retina.

This doesn't reflect so you cant see it.

their headlights.

If they're parked up?

Reflectors beside the headlights?

Perhaps...

The more reflectors you add, the more you move away from the point of vantablack, and theres going to be the whole central area that doesn't have reflectors. If you're looking side on and can only see a reflector on the left, and reflector on the right, are you going to discern the car in the middle?

Black cars are already involved in more accidents [1]. This seems like it would be worse.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7845366/Black-cars...

A scary amount of people don’t release their headlights allow others to see them.

Even in rain you see people with no lights on. I think that lights should be on all the time like some Scandinavian countries do, or at least come on automatically when your wipers are on.

Headlights+Reflectors

Would that kind of painting be a problem for speed-trap or radar?

Vantablack absorbs ultraviolet through far-infrared, so radar is probably not affected.

Infrared laser speed measurement devices would have difficulty if aimed at the body of the car, which is why they often aim at license plates (which you may be stopped and ticketed for if you cover with an infrared-blocking plastic, as many do).

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