Porsche is back at it again, filing patents for the coolest tech. Just last month it was a manual-automatic Frankenstein transmission, and this time, it’s filing a patent for new technology that can make racing stripes appear and disappear at the twist of a knob.
According to a patent filing with Germany’s DPMA, as reported by Motor1 and Jalopnik, the system uses an electrically responsive film applied to the vehicle’s exterior. This film can alter its appearance on demand, allowing features like racing stripes to be hidden, revealed, or recoloured depending on the car’s settings.
In Porsche’s own examples, the technology is used as a way to visually communicate the car’s status to the outside world. That could mean different colours or stripe patterns representing drive modes like Eco or Sport, or even showing information such as the vehicle’s state of charge in future EVs.
It’s not just racing stripes that the system could be used for either. The patent images also show it being applied to elements like rear air vents and the diffuser, suggesting potential future use on aerodynamic components such as splitters, air canards, and even spoilers.
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The system may sound futuristic, but it is based on similar principles to electrochromic glass used in panoramic roofs on modern high-end cars. In those systems, a tungsten oxide layer reacts to an electrical current to change its transparency — but here, the same idea is applied to exterior body films that can shift in both colour and pattern, rather than just opacity.
For now, it remains just a patent, and there’s no guarantee it will ever make it into production. Much like the manual-auto hybrid transmission patent, it could stay on paper — but it’s the kind of over-engineered, slightly unnecessary, yet undeniably cool concept that fans would love to see actually built. Just imagine rolling up and flexing different “moods” on your car with a simple twist of a dial.
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