Corning Glass, of Gorilla Glass and Pyrex fame, has developed an exceptional new automotive glass that is literally better in every respect than current automotive glass. It is even very cost competitive when factoring in "greatly reduced manufacturing scrap rates." "In the beginning (and still in most cars today) there was soda-lime glass, which consists largely of sodium oxide and calcium oxide. Then came Gorilla Glass, which includes a high percentage of aluminum-oxide. Now there's Fusion5—an entirely different borosilicate glass using boric oxide. All are "amorphous" solids, in that they typically harden from their liquid state too quickly to form a crystalline structure of the type that defines most other solids." "The high melting point also gives Fusion5 a coefficient of thermal expansion that's half that of old-school glass, so it's much less susceptible to thermal shock of the sort that happens if you defrost an icy windshield with boiling water. In all, Fusion5 is five times more scratch resistant, four times more resilient to sharp impacts, and twice as resistant to thermal shock, relative to soda-lime glass. Add in the fact that it's about 10 percent less dense than that SLG (and even about 7 percent less dense than Gorilla Glass), and now you can have a car with considerably thinner glass that's still way stronger while saving a bunch of weight—great for efficiency and EV range." "But its optical clarity is the best part. Most automotive glazing starts with molten glass that is floated and cooled on a horizontal surface, but Fusion5 gets formed by overflowing both sides of a hopper, fusing at the pointy bottom edge of the hopper, and cooled vertically. This process produces extremely smooth surfaces front and back, and exceptionally uniform thickness." It holds that clarity longer due to "exceptional resistance to weathering" and distorts 50% less at an angle. https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/...er-and-good-for-electric-and-autonomous-cars/ I predict this glass will soon be used by every automotive manufacturer. I just backed that up with a stock purchase.
Cool, but what’s it look like with shitty salt air eaten and sun melted windshield wipers smearing the 3:30 rain storm every day?
USAA has gotten crazy with their insurance pricing. We had them for our auto insurance for many years but switched last year after doing a price comparison. I was actually shocked at how much higher usaa was compared to the rest. I encourage everyone to do price checking every year on their auto insurance.
We bailed years ago and my wife worked for them. First they wouldn’t cover the house we moved to then their auto insurance got crazy expensive. I have to admit that their service is the best when you have a claim.
I wonder what Fusion5's acoustical dampening properties are? Cabin noise (or lack thereof) is an important quality for me.
If nearly every auto manufacturer in the world is buying their glass or licensing the technology, I believe so. Car manufacturers spend an inordinate amount of money reducing weight on their vehicles. This one comes with significant advantages in addition to simply weight saving.
On the day you asked the question, Corning Glass stock traded at $31.79/share. On Friday it closed at $42.85. I can not tell you how much of that is attributable to the new automotive glass, but I'm happy I purchased it.
It had to be corning didn't it? I don't trust Corning. LOL Back in the 70's Corning ware had a TV commercial where a housewife drops a Corning ware dish on the kitchen floor and it didn't break. My wife bought some Corning ware dishes and the next time we had guests over for dinner she said look you can drop it on the floor and it won't break. LMAO it shattered into a thousand pieces.