DETROIT — The thin, lightweight glass on your smartphone soon could be found on your car.
Corning’s Gorilla Glass is used for the screens on billions of mobile phones. Now, car makers are using an automotive version to help shave weight off their vehicles and improve fuel economy.
BMW was the first to use Gorilla Glass last year. The material formed an interior panel in the i8 hybrid sports car.
Ford will be the first to use it for a windshield and rear window in the new Ford GT sports car, which is scheduled to go on sale next year. The GT also has a Gorilla Glass engine cover.
“It’s the newest thing to happen to glass since 1923,” said Paul Linden, a supervisor of body exterior mechanisms at Ford. That was the year Henry Ford started using shatter-resistant glass in the Model T.
Traditional windshields are made of two layers of heat-treated annealed glass with a plastic layer in between. Annealed glass forms a spider web pattern when it breaks, and the pieces are designed to stick to the plastic layer to prevent injury to passengers.
The GT’s windshield is a hybrid. It has an annealed glass outer layer and plastic in the middle. But the inner layer is made of chemically strengthened, automotive-grade Gorilla Glass, which is much thinner and lighter than traditional glass. Ford says using Gorilla Glass makes the windshield 32 percent lighter, which saves fuel and improves the car’s handling.
The glass meets U.S. safety standards, Corning says, and it has endured automakers’ tests on rough roads and in wind tunnels. Ford says it’s tougher than traditional annealed glass. When engineers shot pieces of hail at Gorilla Glass, for example, it wasn’t damaged. The annealed glass shattered.
Doug Harshbarger, business director of Corning’s automotive glass business, says Corning is working on alternate ways of designing Gorilla Glass for use throughout the vehicle.
