As China embraces electric cars, this start-up is trying to profit from a 60-year-old smart glass technology
- The technology Ambilight is working on – thin film assembled with proprietary EC materials – aims to solve heat and light problems in glass
- Sunroofs are a popular feature in electric cars, with the sector expected to be worth US$1.5 billion by 2025, according to Guotai Junan Securities
He Jiazhi, a Purdue University chemistry PhD graduate, is on a mission to bring electrochromic (EC) technology for glass out of the research lab and into the hands of thousands of consumers.
The explosive growth of China’s new energy vehicle industry and recent breakthroughs in lab research have offered fresh hope that the technology is ready to be widely adopted. “When we were doing early experiments, we were only able to make it the size of a fingernail … But if we can make it into a technology like [the printing press], where it can be industrialised, the cost will be reduced, making it available to all consumers,” He, the co-founder and chief technology (CTO) officer of Ambilight, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.
EC technology, which was invented in the 1960s, can change the colour of glass by altering the electric field. However, it still has limited use and has not been commercialised on a large scale.
He was inspired by his Purdue professor Mei Jianguo, who also co-founded the company in 2017. Mei, a Richard and Judith Wien Associate Professor of Chemistry at Purdue, obtained his doctorate at the University of Florida in 2010 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in 2014, according to his official bio.
“My professor told me our research should lead to discoveries that will be either in textbooks or in the market, or even better in both. That inspired me,” said He.
The technology Ambilight is working on – thin film assembled with proprietary, advanced EC materials – aims to solve two problems; heat and light. “For heat insulation, our technology will absorb part of the sun’s energy, and the glass will reflect some infrared. When the sun becomes very harsh, the glass will turn dark, but if we want to see the scenery outside, we can turn the glass lighter,” He said.
The 7-year-old company is eyeing the growing car glass industry. Sunroofs are a popular feature in electric cars, with the sector expected to be worth 10.6 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) by 2025, according to a report by Guotai Junan Securities. In 2021, Tesla’s Model Y offered a glass sunroof measuring 1.4 square metres, while Chinese EV carmaker Nio had a glass roof of more than two square metres in its EC6.
