Globalization of Waterborne Coatings in the Automotive Industry

10 years ago Opel and VW Germany were the first to use waterborne basecoats in regular car production because of environmental reasons. Today waterborne metallic basecoats have a market share of 90% in German car manufacturing, 50% in Europe, and are used in 85 OEM plants worldwide.

New developments show improvements of appearance and process window, making waterborne coatings usable at temperatures from 20 - 30 °C, relative humidities of 70 ± 10 %, and altitudes from sea level to 2000 m.

A novel low cost conversion concept was developed for the introduction of waterborne basecoats into existing (solventborne) paint shops.