Timber wood You may have rolled your eyes slightly when if you saw the scores of Maybach logos on the hood of the Mercedes-Maybach SL680, but the new PixelPaint process used to achieve that look may have a bright green-tech future, with applications on mainstream cars at vastly more affordable price points. Think of it as “digital paint.”
Sustainability: A key enabler is supplier ABB’s RB1000i-S paint atomizer, which boasts 95–99 percent transfer efficiency (paint molecules ending up in the finish). This greatly reduces emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), maintenance costs (like replacing the masking material on the robotic arms), waste treatment costs for the fluids coming out of the paint booth, etc. The technology lends itself to highly accurate computer simulation that helps improve paint application, which can lead to further cost savings. Mazda is already painting whole cars this way and is counting on the technology to greatly reduce the CO2 footprint of its paint shops (which it claims account for 60 percent of the total amount attributable to its ICE vehicle production).
Dot-Matrix Painting: The heads required to reproduce the Maybach logos feature 1,000 tiny individually controlled nozzles, and the robotic arms they attach to offer higher-precision motion control. They also dispense paint from a closer distance (3–8 millimeters), which further improves transfer efficiency while complicating the task of painting highly contoured shapes.
What’s the Paint? PixelPaint differs somewhat from broadcast-sprayed paint, though ABB is cagey on the specifics other than to say the viscosity is altered to suit the high-precision microscopic nozzles, and its chemical makeup is designed to be less likely to sag before curing. Despite greatly reduced airborne VOCs, the paint must meet the same explosion-proof standards, so water-borne paint is still employed.
What About Multi-Color Designs? ABB’s existing paint heads cannot dispense different colors the way your office printer does, but if Maybach ever decides to give its logos a metallic gold drop shadow, ABB can accommodate that wish by making a second pass with a gold paint head. It might also one day be possible to PixelPaint clear coat into the voids of a design to eliminate the multiple layering and sanding of clear coat on today’s SL680’s hood.
Broader-Market Roll-Out: India’s Mahindra & Mahindra points the way to broader usage of the technology. It’s using the PixelPaint process to achieve the contrast-color roof and pillars with no masking at all separating the colors. The process is expected to debut on its Volkswagen-MEB-related BE.05 SUV launching in October 2025.