Cars Might Soon Have Transparent Wood Dashboards
As automakers explore new materials and technologies to minimize cars’ weight and emissions, some companies are offering innovative solutions that could advance these goals. Woodoo, a material science company based out of Paris, France, is one of these companies.
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Meet Woodoo and its founder
Woodoo is the brainchild of French architect Timothée Boitouzet. He’s received numerous accolades, from the Innovators Under 35 France title to the Global Shapers Award and World Alliance Award.
The company’s mission is to blend nature with technology to design the materials of the future. To this end, it created a new transparent wood.
Boitouzet got the inspiration for modified wood from Japanese construction culture. “This material that we considered an old material, without innovation, was actually super smart. This got me excited about wood.”He predicts that wood will be “the material of the 22nd century,” similarly to how steel was the go-to construction material of the 19th century.
More about Woodoo augmented wood
Per the company’s website, Woodoo creates the augmented wood by extracting air and lignin from it, then reinforcing it with a bio-based polymer. This modification endows the material with strength and fire-resistance. Woodoo envisions multiple applications for the augmented wood, especially in the automotive and construction sectors. Automakers could integrate the wood into vehicle cockpits for a “tactile dashboard.”
Using this material would reduce the vehicle’s weight while producing less pollution than traditional panels involve. It would bring environmentally-conscious automakers, such as GM, one step closer to achieving their emissions-reduction goals.
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Global outlook for augmented reality
According to Goldman Sachs’ recent virtual and augmented reality report, experts predict that this segment will grow by over 50 percent each year, eventually reaching $95 billion by 2025. Woodoo is already partnering with some companies to integrate the modified wood into aircraft and vehicle displays. We’re excited to see what this eco-conscious entity introduces in the days ahead.
Whitney Russell resides in Dayton, though her spirit can be found beach-bumming in Puerto Rico (the land of her half-Puerto Rican heritage). When not crafting car-related content, she can be found chasing after the most amazing toddler in the world, watching her “beaver” of a husband build amazing woodworking projects, hanging out with two crazy dogs, and visiting family and friends. She also enjoys traveling, crafting, and binge-watching period dramas when time allows. See more articles by Whitney.