Safety and comfort for automotive living spaces
The supplier Saint-Gobain Sekurit latest trend of automotive glazing
Herzogenrath , Germany

The French automotive glass producer is well prepared for the future of mobility. One of the new star products is named SGS ClimaCoat. This windshield with improved insulation properties premieres in the new VW Passat. Volkswagen, as biggest customer of the supplier offers in his mass model such a windshield as ‘Klimakomfortverglasung’. New is the totally invisible coating. A conductive multilayer coating is applied on one of the inner side of one glass. Especial attractive is the operation with a standard 14 Volt power supply. This simplifies the implementation unlike the previous solution with 42 Volt and decreases the system complexity. This opens the application towards the medium-sized segment. As world novelty in automotive glazing it incorporates two key benefits in one windscreen: heatable in the winter and heat reflecting in the summer . In winter at -5 °C, the wireless heatable coating de-ices and de-fogs the windshield in less than 2 minutes.

The remaining water film can be easily wiped away. “Moreover it prevents re-icing in the first few minutes of driving” underlines Javier Colmenares, Vice president Sales, Marketing and new Projects. And in summer, as the manager, “the heat reflective coating of the SGS ClimaCoat â windscreen noticeably reduces the heat buildup inside vehicles”. This adds to fuel economy, as the air conditioning system takes less time to cool the vehicle down. This occurs by reflecting the IR radiation. “Only 29 % of the IR radiation of approx. 800 W/m² passes through SGS ClimaCoat â (Standard: > 50 %)” says Colmenares. In comparison to a standard glazing Saint-Gobain Sekurit prospects a fuel saving of 0.1 liter per 100 km. By using the all-weather windshield 2.5 g/km of CO₂ emissions can be saved.

Outlook for e cars
ClimaCoat is fitted into this area of electro mobility. 1^st of all is the insulation of a car to reduce sources for heating, cooling and de-fogging. By end of 2012 Saint-Gobain Sekurit launches low e – a low emissivity solution for big sunroofs which is important for the sustainable heat management of cars. “The principle here is that drivers head feels cool at extreme external and internal conditions“, says Colmenares. On the other hand, Sekurit is working on reducing the glazing weight which means that thin glazing will be able to cut the vehicle weight by five kilos. Regarding the weight saving, Saint-Gobain Sekurit sees also a space for polycarbonate glazing such as the roof or for complex shapes. “We are also plastic industry as the most important supplier - FreeGlass - is one of our brands”, so Javier Colmenares, both, glass and polycarbonate, are fitting together.

Added-value glazing for automotive living spaces produced in Slovakia and Czech Republic
Worldwide Saint-Gobain Sekurit supplies the major car makers with added-value products. In the Czech Republic, Saint-Gobain Sekurit Hořovice facility handles the final product SGS ClimaCoat â . Saint-Gobain Sekurit invested in a new line of its Hořovice plant for the all-weather windshield SGS ClimaCoat â and other complex windshield. For Javier Colmenares, this product is a textbook case. "It illustrates our strategy of making innovation the driver of our development model. This enables us to anticipate and even to initiate the latest trends. This is also the best way for us to support our customers differentiation strategies and differentiate ourselves by the value creation”. In 2010, Saint-Gobain Sekurit as automotive branch of the Saint-Gobain group gained a turnover of 1.7 billion Euros; thereof slightly more than 50 % was achieved in Europe.

May 24, 11 Dr. Ann-Katrin Glüsing