Imagine that the bright sun no longer blinds you on long trips, and passengers in the cabin can retire without bulky curtains. But how does ordinary glass turn into a high-tech gadget controlled by a button? We will take a look at the production of Octoglass and tell you about each stage of the creation of this miracle.
Electrochromic glass is a multilayer structure that changes its color from completely transparent to deeply darkened under the influence of low voltage. The process of its production is jewelry work at the junction of precision engineering and high chemical technologies.
Stage 1: Precision to the micron. Scanning and creating a digital double
It all starts not at the production site, but in the engineering laboratory. We can't just make glass of "about the same" size and bend. The glass of each model is unique.
A scan of the original. We purchase the original glass of the car and read every curve, every bend, all spacers and fasteners.
Creating the perfect drawing. The digital data obtained is transformed into an engineering drawing, a digital twin of the future glass. It takes into account not only the geometry, but also the power connection points, contact locations, and assembly tolerances. Without this stage, the glass will either not fall into place, or it will allow water and wind to pass through, or it will disrupt the aerodynamics of the body, and the car will start making extraneous noises when driving at high speed.
This is the foundation on which the success of the entire project depends. Our goal is for smart glass to stand up perfectly, like a native one.
Stage 2: The heart of the form. Manufacture of tooling for shaping glass
Glass is not plastic, it cannot be molded into any shape. It needs to be precisely bent at high temperature, a process called “molling". For molling, a special metal tooling (shape) is created that exactly repeats the bend of the original glass.
A blank of several glasses is placed on this mold and sent to the oven for molling.
Under the influence of temperature, the glass softens and accurately repeats all the bends of the tooling under its own weight.
Stage 3: Assembly and polymerization. The know-how that sets us apart from others
This is the most responsible and technological stage. The finished bent glass turns into a "sandwich" of several layers.
Multi-layer assembly. A liquid electrochromic polymer is placed inside, which will darken under voltage.
Polymerization. The assembled structure undergoes a polymerization process, where, under a certain pressure and temperature, the layers are finally sintered into a single, monolithic web.
But electrochromic materials have an "Achilles' heel" — ultraviolet radiation. Over time, when exposed to the sun, the polymer may degrade, lose its properties, fade, or react more slowly.
The usual solution to the problem is to paste a transparent film with a UV filter on the outside of the glass. But this method has huge disadvantages:
Our patented solution: an internal UV barrier.
We don't mask the problem from the outside, but solve it from the inside. At the assembly stage, a special protective layer is integrated into the sandwich structure, which blocks ultraviolet light. This layer:
The use of an internal UV barrier is only part of the solution to ensure the durability of the Octoglass electrochromic glass. Another important factor is smart controllers that constantly check the condition of the glass and ensure the highest possible but safe speed of switching the glass from a transparent state to a tinted state. The controllers can work with any buttons and switches, they work with remote control, and they can be interfaced with other vehicle units via both a standard CAN bus and a serial port.
Stage 4: The result. Technologies ready for installation
Finished electrochromic glasses undergo the strictest quality control for light transmission, dimming speed, uniformity of tone and complete tightness.
And the main result is the transformation of the car.
Aug 2025