Tesla has recently achieved another innovation that aims at redefining the process of automobile manufacturing, and it is the paint-free process for the automobile body panels, which the carmaker will introduce with the new Cybertruck. The company will not only change the standard vehicle finishing process with this model, as stated by Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy, but it will also bring an enormous change that might affect the entire industry.
Moravy spilled the beans on the Tesla-manufactured innovation over a recent episode of the Ride The Lightning podcast, providing some information on how Tesla does what it does: “You inject the polyurethane paint as you are forming the plastic panels. That car has no paint shop. When we do the panels, we place the colors in. That’s it. It just boils down to paint it.”
This disclosure can be found in conjunction with a recently revealed patent by Tesla Inc. known as Manufacturing Paint-Free Vehicle Body Panels, which reveals how Tesla will manage to incorporate color within the body panel of material through the use of molding. The ramifications are far-reaching indeed, not just to Tesla but to the auto-making industry in general.
Eliminating the Paint Shop: Why It Matters
Historically, car painting has been one of the most complicated, most costly, and most environmentally demanding aspects of production. The manufacture of paint involves huge physical space, exceedingly high power consumption, and high environmental control as a result of the chemicals and emissions.
Dropping the paint shop completely out of the production line of the Cybercab, Tesla would be able to accomplish:
Reduced Cost of Production: Painting may comprise 30% of all manufacturing costs of a vehicle. By doing without this, the cost of capital and operations is cut to a great extent.
🚨 @Tesla's patent for "Manufacturing Paint-Free Vehicle Body Panels" has just been revealed!
This looks like a game-changing technology for the automotive manufacturing industry. 👀🔥🔥🔥 https://t.co/BhpNRQs1vH pic.twitter.com/yN9OCnE3lf
— SETI Park (@seti_park) July 17, 2025
Reduced Production Cycles: The introduction of color in the process of panel molding shortens the production cycle, in terms of subsequent assembly.
Lower environmental impact Tesla approach eliminates the use of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and water waste that is involved in the traditional painting process.
Improved Repairability: because the color is printed within the panel itself, any minor scratch or repair you do will not give an appearance of a contrasting primer or undercoat, and therefore, repairs are easier and more natural.
How the Process Works
Tesla’s patent WO2025151308A1 utilizes a multi-cavity reactive injection and molding (RIM) architecture, enabling the formation, coating, and demolding of the plastic body panels simultaneously. Using the tetrahedral mold rotation kinematics, the system carries out four parallel processes, namely substrate formation, surface activation, deposition of coating, and demolding. The production time is cut radically, and every cycle operates under the length of the longest step, not the combination of processes.
RIM has been restricted to compact automotive components. The innovation invented by Tesla applies the same approach to the large-scale exterior body parts by addressing the problems that had been prevalent within the distribution of the resin and the quality of finishing. There are multi-gate rheological flow design, perimeter venting topology, and in-mold surface texture transfer that are the main innovations.
They make it possible to produce panels of various and high-quality surface finishes, including high gloss to low gloss (matte) as well as transparent to special effect colors, all out of the mold.
This new solution not only simplifies production and makes it less expensive but also has a major environmental impact. It has just the right timing to complement the targets of their future Cybercab; it provides reliable panels that cannot be easily broken, repaired, and comes in ready-colored modes just out of the manufacturing line. When commercialized, it may change the industry standards globally since it uses no actual paint.
