Transcript
Welcome to The Inevitable, a podcast by Motor Trend. Hi there and welcome to another episode of The Inevitable. This is Motor Trends podcast, our video podcast, also known as a podcast, about the future of the car, the future of transportation, the future of cracked windshields. In fact, will cracked windshields even have a future? Not if our next guest has anything to do with it. We are talking to Corning Automotive Glass Solutions VP and general manager Mike Kounoonis came all the way to us from sort of middle of New York, halfway between New York City and Toronto. And he's gonna tell us all about, yeah, it's cold. He's gonna tell us all about what's going on with the glass in our car, uh, not just the windshield and not just how they, how Corning is trying to make them, um, impervious to cracks, but also what's going on with all the screens in the car, and then oddly, um, optical. Uh, so what this guy has to say about fiber optic fiber optics, uh, and yeah, so Mike Koons, uh, super nice guy, gentle with him first podcast ever, ever. Uh, he is a 20 plus year veteran of ning. He's an engineer. He was in the army. Uh, he's a father, dad of two, young girls, uh, super nice guy, super knowledgeable, and again, we're gonna talk to him all about what Corning Glass is doing. Um, they, by the way, they are probably. What you, if you're watching us on your tablet, on an iPhone, laptop, even a laptop, good chance that Corning supplied the glass, uh, for that. Also, um, their products are on, so they're on iPhones, they're on, uh, iPads, they're on Android phones, and then. They have been making these fiber optic cables for all sorts of different manufacturers, uh, like they might provide the Wi Fi in your home or they might be part of the data transmission cable that goes between the continent you live on another one. Who knows? We're gonna talk to Mike and get all the answers about what the future of glass is in the car from a EV software drive vehicle, kind of everything perspective. So without further ado, Mike Kunis. So Mike Kounoons, VP and general manager of Corning Automotive Glass Solutions, thank you so much for joining us here in the inevitable. It is your very first podcast, so we will not take it easy at all. Uh, we chatted with your colleague at um CES, so I don't know, let's let's start, let's start, um, let's start with newest stuff or future facing. That's, that's the podcast. Uh, first, and I understand you guys announced or working on some new, um, optical fiber solutions for some kind of problem we might be facing in the future with vehicles. Can you explain what this is? Yeah, so, um, maybe we can start with what is optical fiber. Yes, that'd be great. So, uh, optical fiber is a piece of glass is actually two pieces of glass, and, uh, you've got, um, an index of a fraction, the two different types of glass that are. Uh, where light is kind of propagating through the glass and basically versus uh copper, you can go a lot further distances and you can do a lot more uh uh data uh transmission over that. So, uh, Material was invented 50 years ago and we know this is fiber optics yeah yeah so yeah fiber optics. So this is how, how people communicate between continents, between cities, now in cities, now going to our houses. So it just keeps getting closer and closer and closer to folks and so it's probably gonna go get into the vehicle right now deed is transmitted inside the vehicle with copper. And uh because we're putting so much more sensors in the vehicles, uh, we got more bigger displays, uh we got autonomy going on, uh, you want really low latency in the vehicle, uh, the amount of bandwidth moving around in the vehicle is a lot more. And then the ECUs are, uh, they're putting less and less of those, so they're making sure that each of those ECUs do more work. And so as a result of that, we're getting, I think at the end of the decade, where we're really pushing uh uh twisted pair and uh coax in the vehicle, uh, to the limit. And, uh, next decade, uh, you're going to see optical fiber now replacing that. And what's what's like the bandwidth jump like how much more data can you push through a similar sized fiber optic cable as compared to like copper wiring? Yeah, it's it's, it's like nearly infinitely, so I don't think that you have a tremendous amount of futureproofing uh that you're going to be able to get with the optical fiber. Um, copper systems, they basically redesign the connectors. The types of cables, um, every SOP, um, uh, because the bandwidth keeps going up, so you're gonna get start of production, start of production breaking down the jargon. All right, appreciate that. And uh so you're gonna be able to futureproof because you can get a lot more bandwidth through the uh through the optical fiber. Um, we kind of use in the, um, from a technical jargon, uh, when you're starting to move 100 gigabits, um, uh, per meter, uh, per second per meter through the media, you kind of get to where the economics better work. Uh, for, uh, optics versus copper. So in other words, on a dumb vehicle, you're not pushing that much data, but then when you start to get modern vehicles, um, you will be getting in the massive amounts of data, and it's just gonna get more and more as cloud computing takes over the car. Um, then the fiber optic or optical cable solution pays off. Yes, let's, uh, this is great. Let me, um, let's break down some of this I like where we started with like what I imagine the weight savings like we're gonna get there on their 2 they just pulled. 1.5 pounds of copper and so is it a massive weight savings it is it's about probably about a 30 to 40% weight savings for about the same amount of a cable because the cables are smaller, uh, so they're gonna be able to bend better so you can kind of put them in different places inside the vehicles, maybe get to a camera that's in the door that's that's articulating back and forth, uh, so you're gonna be able to get the weight savings, um. And the cables, because they're smaller, they're a lot easier to install. So if you think about the uh car companies and the folks that are on the assembly lines, it's been a lot easier to move those gigantic cabling harnesses in the places in those nooks and crannies in the vehicles. I was at the um G-wagon factory in Graus Magnusta is a factory. And they had the wiring loom for a G-wagon is 6 miles of copper, and it's about 100 pounds and and there was this these women mostly did it, but they would load like front load them with this huge wiring loom and they'd go and like splash it in the pan of the vehicle and it was insane, you know that was, that was the last gen. I don't know that this gens probably more, but yeah, they just keep getting bigger and more complex and you put them in the car, you never want to take them out. You can't, you can't take them out. So, let's go back to where we started. So fiber optic cable, um. It's actually gla*s. Like it is, is it, it's, it's actually glass, yes, so it's, um, yeah, there's two different types of glass here. We then kind of code it, put a coating on it, then we put it in a cable, uh, but the actually part where the, where the light goes through, you know, that's very, very small there. And um we, you're basically playing on, uh, you're trying to kind of trap the light in this tunnel right and so you have what's called the index of refraction. It's literally bouncing the lights all the way through, yeah, so the index of refraction of like the, the inner inner core and the outer core or the outer part are different and so you kind of bounces around. So you know, you know, you see like a light going into a pool and it kind of shifts as it goes from air into gla*s. So that's like the air and the glass have actually water have two different uh indexes of refraction. So we have the same thing going on and we just want to bounce that light and since and if you do that, you can go 60, 80, 100 kilometers without having to regenerate that signal. So you can go, so yeah, you're not doing that obviously inside a car, so no problem with the degradation inside the car and the and the ref what's bouncing, it's literally the ones and zeros, right? Like it's it's like it's a laser light, so on one side you might have an LED, you might have a laser, kind of depending on kind of what, what um um uh wavelength you're working at. Uh, but basically, yep, that, that light is just bouncing back and forth and to get from, uh, the, uh, transmitter to the receiver that's on the other side, right? And so it's like encoding on one end, decoding on the other end, these ones and zeros, which is, which is wild because this is the cable, as you mentioned, that has been, that has been laid between continents for data transmission and was recently cut suspiciously. By we won't name on this on this show anchors dragged and actually cut the munication are like are like super thick. Yeah, they're a little smaller than that, but it's pretty amazing that they can uh drag things back up the surface and then they can repair them and throw them back down. OK. And then I'm I'm trying to bring this home, so now you've heard about, you know what optic fiber is, you've heard about the news, but in your home, I mean, it's not like super new stuff. Like I have a TV. I got this old Sony. And it's got an optical port on it, and I got the cable for it. So I'm gonna pressure test you because you mentioned twisted pair, which is jargon for basically copper wire, like 22 copper wires, coax, which I think everybody knows, it's a, it's a wire wire inside a wire, right, coaxial, and then optical. In your, for the Super Bowl on the TV, actually you watched it in a hotel, but in your big screen at home, are you plugging in to the entertainment device of your choice with an optical? It's interesting. I used to I used to and I didn't use actually fiber, plastic optical fiber. So there was a standard for AV systems where they could use that. They've since gone back to um I used to have an optical cable and then I got a new receiver and I was like. Why did we for a period of like 10 years hey you should use this optical thing for your TV? Well, I think for that short distance it was, it was cheaper to be able to do the copper and then the other thing we have going on is a lot more wireless inside the home. So the wireless standards keep moving up. That's what's, uh, that's what's been having the devices go back and forth, uh, with, uh, with data, and then what you have is you actually have fiber going into the homes. Uh, to go get max of bandwidth was like that's it's gonna be a huge environmental impact from the automotive industry switches from copper. To, um, fiber optics, just because, you know, people always cry about cobalt mining. Cobalt's like, uh, my understanding is it's a byproduct of copper mining. There aren't actually any standalone cobalt mines. You mine copper and then you get about 10% of it or whatever is cobalt. So you'd be using a lot less. Copper obviously, so yeah yeah no metal, yeah, but I'm sure Corning is uh looked into this or this or well so first you, you said everything's lighter, so that's just gonna be great for everyone because you know we're moving around a lot less mass so that's perfect. Uh, second, the, uh, the glass itself is very inexpensive to make it's a lot less, uh, much more. It's, uh, much cheaper than, uh, making copper. So if we, when we make our, our glass, um, you know, the spaghetti, you know, that's orders of magnitude more expensive per unit length than optical fiber. It's a very inexpensive material, has a tremendous amount of, uh. Bandwidth capability. And so, so, uh, so what's been the hold up I'll I'll give you my, um, uh, my best friend who sadly passed away, but he had his, uh, PhD in, um, he's an electrical engineer and he had a PhD in nanophotonics. And I remember he was working on a project where they were doing this for airplanes. I have no idea if it was Corning or not, but, and I said, hey, you should do this for cars. And he's like, Nah, like what's, you don't need that. It's so short. Um, and I was like, no, it would be great for cars because all the reasons we've talked about it, get the weight out and faster and more data. But what's, why, why the weight? Like why hasn't this is it, is it just the amount of data being sent hasn't reached like a tipping point or, you know, it's, it's, we use the uh nophotonics a version of that in the in the cables, fiber. So if you take a fiber and you bend it. Light starts to leak out, right, so then you actually have an attenuation event and so we put uh nano perforations in that core to go redirect the light. So we're actually doing a bit of that so that now you can go around really small bends. You can take a uh an optical fiber, kind of wrap it around a pencil mandrel and you won't have any uh light leak out of it. nanophotons, I mean, we're completely in the weeds, but that's like photon manipulation that's like moving like like literally a light particle like doing what you want with it. Yeah, and we're manipulating it at the material level to kind of direct the light where we want it to go, but you're right, there's there's also things going on at the transmitter and the receiver. Uh, to be able to help that and that helps with not only bandwidth, but I think they're doing some encryption work there. But was it, was it like the, like the, you know, you're saying by the end of the decade this will happen. Why, why hasn't it? Why didn't it happen last decade? What, what's big copper trying to keep the man besides big copper copper copper copper guys. Uh, no, but it's, it's all bandwidth, right? Get you you and at the end of the day with the with the car companies, it's economics, right? So you gotta, so they, they like the weight savings, they like that you can put in tighter bands. They want to help their employees on the line, but at the end of the day. It's got to be cheaper, right, given the needs that they have, and I think they're getting to that point as we get to the end of the decade where the economics prove out given where the bandwidth requirements are at and you and you kind of know that because you see the car companies, they're in the standards organizations now, uh, building for 25 megabit and 150 and 100. OK, let's go figure out how we're gonna go do this so they get standardization across the industry. And they're they're very active now. Do you, do you have an inkling of like how, how much bandwidth, like, in other words, like, OK, if you're by the end of the decade, are you looking at the 100 megabit or is that's not future proof like you gotta be at the gigabit level? Well, how much data will cars be pushing? That's a that's a great question. I think I think it comes down to like how are we gonna solve autonomy, right? And autonomous systems, uh, they're gonna use a lot of sensors and a lot of different types of sensors, cameras, uh, LA bandwidth intensive, right? Yeah, and then the latency, you gotta be able to, the car's got to make a decision very, very quickly and integrate that across multiple sensors all at the same time. So you want very low latency. You're gonna have very high bandwidth and if they have a lot of redundancy out there that just is pushing up the the bandwidth so I think based on how we solve that problem, uh, as an industry that'll kind of, kind of create that tipping point of when you'll see a lot more like the size of the pipe, so to speak just like how, how I mean because. Like, I, I get, I, my understanding is there's almost no limit on what could be transmitted with fiber optics. It's just, it's a, it's a size of data that the library out the transmitter and the receiver and the cable itself is pretty you're listening and you're like, what are you guys talking about Frank Marcus did a great story on this uh from CES. And really in the, in this intro talks about how right now, like the most advanced software defined vehicles out there are pushing around about 1 gigabyte of data, but in, he's speculating in 3, to your point by the start of the next decade. It likely we will see a 10-fold increase, roughly 10 gigabytes of data being pushed right inside the vehicle. Olympics, and this is where I kind of come back to you because you were, you, you asked, um, how do you know like how do you plan for this? Like when you go to CES and you see like invis like the hottest thing they're talking about these think GPUs and we're paying attention to these car manufacturers that are announcing that oh we're putting I was talking to some Chinese manufacturers and they're like, we don't just have 2 Nvidia drive oranges. We have 4 because we're futureproofing. I'm just like, this sounds crazy expensive. Uh, but then it's, then you start talking about like, well, how much data do you actually need in the car and then how much data are you to move around and, and we're looking at what I think Frank mentioned that the upper limit of copper is Uh, was it 200 gigabytes per second? No, that's the lower limit of optical 200 gigabytes per second, which sounds like a lot. That's like that's uh we can go, we go higher too, right, um. So what, so what do you, when, when in your position was you look towards the future, what signals like, are you looking at these, these, these chip manufacturers going, OK, we gotta start like pushing or start ramping or like how does, how does it work on your side? Yeah, so it all starts with the guys and we go to the car companies and we, we do a lot of future proofing sessions with them or we'll get in front of them and Gonna understand what are you doing from a design standpoint? What are you doing from a connectivity standpoint, what kind of bandwidth you're gonna need so we can figure out what is the next problem challenge that OEM is going to have. And um so we, we'll ask them to point blank, you know, what type of bandwidth do you think you're gonna be moving through the car. And then when they tell us and they say, we ask you, well, which tier one do you want us to work with, uh, to help solve that problem because we're, we're pretty far back in the supply chain as a material company. We'll find out who that is and then we'll kind of work with them on what the protocols are gonna be. Um, and kind of target of the dates that we're gonna need to be ready, and then we kind of put our innovation, um, in gear to go help the car companies help the industry. Because this is not like we're talking about, um, I know we talked a little bit about like personal electronics or you know wiring harnesses. You're not going in and swapping this out of your vehicle. This is this is this is this is baked in because you said SOP production, you need to be in a manufacturer's plan from like The pencil sketch of the vehicle and whatever the screens you're gonna put in, you're like, OK, if you're gonna want to do that, then you're gonna need to upgrade from copper to optical and then become part of the manufacturing process of the vehicle. Yeah, absolutely. And I think our our our first biggest problem was fiber optic seams with lasers and that seems kind of hard to do. I don't think I have a I have a very harsh environment in the car. How's it gonna work? And uh you mentioned FiOS and Verizon, you know, we've worked with customers like that to go solve a lot of problems to be able to go make connectivity work with optical fiber. So first thing we got is prove that actually the tech works. Uh, so, so they say, oh yeah, this actually works. And then, then we go, what are the, what's going to be that intersection of when the bandwidth is gonna require me to start to have that conversation like should copper or should fiber Be doing this from an economic standpoint and then once they get there, then they get all those uh ancillary benefits around weight installation things of that nature but that starts at at the at the top of the company and then you know then the uh the technical engineering parts of the company will be doing conversations with both of those so that we kind of get the timing right. And it's it, I just find it interesting you were saying with, you know, it's, it's, you can, it's more flexible and you can put it in more places than copper. Then, you know, I was just thinking like, You know, you said that you know, like a Lamborghini door, you know, you can maybe like articulate it more now or like Jeep doors that come off instead of having that crazy, what is it like 10 pin connector, you probably have a much smaller, easier kind of connector because that's annoying once you've unscrewed a Jeep or a Bronco door. Like the hardest part is then getting the, you know, the pins in out, yeah, let's talk about that. What, what are the There are certain requirements obviously to, to become part of like literally the, the foundation of the vehicle and a lot of it is the durability aspect. So like. You know, I can imagine that's what the advantage of, of optical fiber is that it, it doesn't like short out theoretically, right? What, uh, what about like vibration or are there issues with like what are there wear and tear? Uh, issues with what's essentially, I mean, I'm still weird up it's glass fiber like doesn't it break? Like can I at at some point you mentioned you can wrap around a pencil, but if I just, does it, does it snap? Does it we actually used to do this test with the, with the Verizon guys where we would take a staple, staple gun, and we would staple the cable and the glass would have no problem. So, so the, the, the cable not an issue. Now you think about vibration and Other go getting into the vehicle like windshield wiper fluid or water or watering your system, you know, that sits in a manhole and you know it gets frozen and then it thaws and then there's all type of stuff that's inside there. No problem. So you, we, we not only do we make the fiber. Uh, we make the cable and then we make the, uh, the connectors that are on there. And so it's kind of a system approach. We'll put all those things together based on the use case to go uh solve the solution for the customer. Now, can you splice optical cable? Like if I go in and I oops, I, I snip the wrong wire and then I'm gonna reconnect it like it's, it's it's repairable, if you think you talked about earlier repairing it out in the ocean, the cables. So in the car is actually a little easier. Well, it depends where it's located. Yeah, you gotta get to locations, but no, you can, you can actually um uh splice two fibers together. You can do that where you melt the glass back together or you put two connectors on on the edges and then you made them together that way. You have all the, the, the bandwidth loss inside the vehicle is really low for the fiber, so. You can have a lot of connections and you'll still have plenty of bandwidth, uh, light, uh, that's, uh, able to go from to the transmitter to the receiver. And, and I imagine that it actually is probably a lower power requirement to use optic fibers and to use copper. Yeah, they're the, yeah, I was actually done the math on the power to run them. And you have to do an optical, the electrical conversion in the ECU, um, but you go optical. It's, it's, it's very, it's basically passive. OK, so we'll wind this up on, on opt and so we'll talk about other corning products, but the, the interesting thing for me is that yes, we are, we seem to be the cars are moving towards more again software refined vehicles, more software flowing through it, higher processors, but at the same time, as Johnny mentioned, like with Rivian, they reached their big announcement from the. from the first gen gen of the vehicles, is that they, they simplified the number of ECUs. They went down to 7 or 11. Towards what I still think is the holy grail for electric vehicles and most modern vehicles is weight reduction, like getting the weight out of the vehicle is gonna be the hardest thing because you got these giant batteries. So this is all adding to it. So it's fascinating stuff. Um, probably not something we're gonna, is the manufacturer ever gonna first of all, is any manufacturer out there running optical fiber yet or there was a standard, um, about a decade ago in Europe called Most. MOST and they were putting some plastic optical fiber in the vehicles uh so there's some experience out there, uh, but that the industry is gonna wanna move to to the glass and then you guys no no one's doing, no one's doing it today, but we're talking to a bunch of different, uh, OEMs and in the tears and. I would expect to see this um out there, you know, in the next couple of sounds like to make a wild guess and I know you can't 2029 S. Mercedes loves to have hyper technology on their on their new S classes. Well, to that point, do you, do you expect, uh, they will they be like, Hey man, your car's got fiber is that something that We'll be, that's a great selling point of the vehicle. I'd like that. We'd love to partner with the company to be able to do that. Well, we can help because I think it's pretty cool. So, no, but it's, I remember one time like Audi's like, you know, that Audi was the first manufacturer to use LED daytime running lights, and I, and I said, you know, the Reliance Scimitar was the first manufacturer with this or first car with a split folding rear seat. They stared at me, I went on the LED lighting. I was like, this is and they gave us one. We went with a little battery and an LED connected. I was like this is wild. And then two years later the cars on the road. I was like this is this is and are looking for an angle. Is there a market that you can tell where the consumers would be hungry hungrier for this tech and I'm I'm leading like, you know, when we talk to Chinese manufacturers, they'll say like, Yeah, people bring their cars back. They're like, the new chips out. Give me the new chip, whereas like Americans are like, more horsepower, I want more power. But there, you know, is there any like, do consumers have any knowledge of this? Are they hungry for it? Uh, when we talked about autonomy, I, I think that's gonna be where the tipping point is for the, for the material, uh, for the the connectivity material the s**t that's right, and then a lot of EVs are gonna be more autonomous, so probably gonna be in that area, um, and then there's, there's other areas like think about like, um, uh, Class 8 trucks like really long. So they've got cables of cameras they're gonna go all the way to the back of the trailer and um and they're trying to go reduce the number of EUs as well so you can kind of get all home run all those things back to the cab. I think that'll be an area as well. OK. So corning looking ahead, uh, to the future of software vehicles autonomous with uh fiber optic uh cables in the cars, but as we, we talked about, there are some other, um. More mainstream current current applications from some big manufacturers that you can talk about uh around your glass products uh specifically. Gorilla Glass, which is in the iPhone, which is also in a few cars, windshields or windows, windshields, uh, Jeep, Porsche, and there was one other one. What was the other one? We can talk about Jeep Jeep Porsche, did some work with Ford. Ford. Oh yeah, the Ford GT yes, OK, so you supply a number of OEMs you can't talk about, but what's your favorite of the automotive applications that we can talk about and, and, and then because I want to talk about where we are with Gorilla Glass and then this other product you have coming, the Fusion Fusion 5, right? Yeah. Well, uh, Corning is a company loves to solve problems. Uh, that's why I joined Corning, uh, more than 25 years ago. And, um, Windshields breaking, that's certainly a problem, right for consumers, we all hate that and kind of depending on the type of car that you have, some are more prone to it, kind of depending on kind of that angle of the, the windshield like a wrangler, like a Wrangler. So when you, when you get that, um, windshield sticking up, uh, nice and proud like that, uh, it's just a big rock catcher and, uh, so a lot of things are hitting it. So how can we solve that problem? Uh, so we've worked with, uh, we actually we worked with Ford. Uh, Ford, we first worked with them in the 60s and actually the gorilla glass got its origin from that collaboration with Ford on the GT back in the 60s. We invented. Uh, not only, uh, some glasses and some manufacturing processes, but the chemical strengthening process, uh, where you actually on the original 4GT, the original 4GT, we, we actually were, were, we're air shipping windshields out to Le Mans to help out the GT and some of the and the origin story of, uh, of that. No, yeah, and obviously we got it back on, uh, uh, the, the, the more recent GT we're really proud of that. But basically how do we go solve, um. How do we use this this material gorilla glass, uh, to be able to go make the windshields lighter, um, have better optics, and ultimately more reliable and durable. And so that's the, what we've been doing for, for many manufacturers, a couple that you mentioned. Uh, and basically what we do is, uh, we originally thought, let's put the gorilla glass on the front of the car because it's super strong, but we actually found out actually it can improve the reliability if you put on the back. So the gorilla glass is actually, uh, a windshield's got two pieces of glass, uh, a laminate, it's on the inner laminate, and the reason for that is when you have a strike event, the windshield is basically starting to flex. And so you want the strongest piece of glass on the inside, uh, so that's where we place that, that, that glass and then we, you put a really thin piece of glass so that makes the outer really thick and that's important because most of the, uh, rock strikes are what, uh, come from sharp impacts, little stones have got little little angles on them and you want more material to have to puncture through before you actually uh break it. So, so how many layers are in your average, your standard windshield? Is it 2? 2, but is there 2 pieces of this, OK, so PPE meaning uh plastic plastic polypropylene, yeah. So is there like One on the outside, 11 on the outside of the outer glass and then is there, is there anything between? The regular glass and goa glass and then something then on the inside you'll have so a typical windshield wall what's the construction windshield is like a piece of soda lime, two pieces of soda lime, both the same thickness of glass, right, um, and, uh, so like 2 millimeters thick typically to 1 and then you've got a piece of plastic in the middle, uh, and then another, uh, similar, uh, thickness piece of soda lime glass on the outer. And that safety glass that's been out since the 50s and 60s and it just ensures that stuff doesn't get into the cabin and we don't get out of the cabin. Well, I mean if you go back and read Nader's book about uh what cars were like before safety glass and it's, you know, jagged neck wound, you know, punctures, uh, we're real common. So, so, so now what we do is we take those two pieces of glass which were in a a symmetric construction we make it asymmetric. So therefore, the outer is much thicker and the inner is much thinner. So we put our technical glass on the inner ply and um and as a result of this, uh, you can improve the reliability of the window. You could also spend that reliability like Ford did. By making the whole stack thinner and therefore it's lighter, so they did that to make the windshields about 30% lighter and then Porsche around that Porsche was the first time I saw it was a GT3RS, and it was just they just wanted it thinner for for uh more sound in and then uh just lighter exhaust coming in, yeah, and it was it was only the rear glass was my understanding was the front was regular porch of glass and the rear was gorilla glass just to. That's a place you could light and has no effect. The downside is it's louder, but everybody wants it louder, so they want a lighter. They want, they want to make sure they kind of, what's that sweet stop between safety, right, so I've got the right safety glass on the vehicle, but I make it as thin as possible so that then I can spend that somewhere else and typically spend it with performance, right, OK. So what, so, so Glass or the predecessor to the trade name right because it wasn't called Glass back then. Yeah, it was like we're we're not a marketing company 10 on the 4GT windshield and then on the latest. Generation and then um certain models of Porsche 9/11 or you are you are you not across the board manufacturing we're across the boards across the board, but you know we have obviously a lot of customers that we're dealing with that. We don't kiss and um there's there's others that are using the material. OK and then. For all iPhone users here, it is that construction, is it the same, similar to an iPhone? Is iPhone like, or is it just all guerrilla class? Like how does, how does, uh, yeah, so it's it's definitely a different construction, um, so we're not putting a laminate on the on the on the front of the of the of the phones. You've got a struck, we're dropping. So it's a different use case there is slightly different, um, and yeah, but still, it is still a chemical material. Can you tell the story of how you got in touch with Apple for the for the for the iPhone because it's I've heard it a little bit, but I heard it's a pretty cool story. Yeah, they actually got in touch with us. Um, and so, um, Steve Jobs had this great idea. He's gonna make the whole front of the phone a display, so he needed some transparent media to cover it. So he first used plastic. It was gonna be plastic. It's plastic. So he's got it, and he wears jeans all the time. It's gonna in and out of his pocket by touching his Porsche keys because I think you have Porsches and, um, scratch it all up and he's like this is gonna be a huge problem. And so they, uh, reached out to us, um, and actually just called Corning, got to the main switch and The person that answered didn't know who he was and they're like trying to get to our CEO and uh so Steve Jobs called. Yeah, hey, we've got Steve and they're like, we can't can't talk to our CEO like you need an appointment but eventually we got the two of them together. That's great. And uh he's like, Hey, yeah, he described his problem and um our, our, our chairman, he's still a Weeks is our chairman and CEO. He was back then, he still is today. Uh, he says, I think we've got something on the shelf that probably can help you, and, uh, that's why we took this, uh, process. I didn't make the glass, the chemical strengthening process to be able to strengthen the glass, and then to build the glass, and then, uh, we put it all together, got that back to Steve. She's like, OK, I want that, uh, and I need it in like 4 months. Yeah, that's that's the part I'll be a, you know, after, after this thing takes off and that seems to be a big success for you and it's created a big consumer electronic business for us so we went on to others and I think, I think what they've done is um really created this unique connection between us consumers and our devices. And now that's what's found its way into the vehicle into the car, so we're just trying to help replicate that, having done that, you know, more than a decade ago. We're trying to help uh car companies do the same thing in the vehicle. Did you have any inkling that the iPhone, and I get this is a little off topic, but that would be the success that it was. Yeah, but I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I would have saw that. I wanted that. But I think remember Nokia was huge back then, Motorola Starch. Let's get rid of the keyboard. What I, I mean, I, I never forget that the first a friend of mine, Scott had, uh, brought an iPhone to a party, iPhone one, and I was, yeah, I was like, why would you want that? Like, uh, and then he pulled up a YouTube video and I remember I was just like, it's all over like that this is it. This is get an iPhone now, like that, you know. So we, we, we, we, we believed in them and um they obviously believed in us, which is great, and uh it's been a long history together. So Gorilla Glass is the current um hotness, and you guys have this new product out there called uh Fusion 5, which I think is interesting because, uh, certainly from a design, one of the solutions you're trying to provide from a vehicle design standpoint, which is like all these cars are getting like really Slippery with like the crazy raked like uh you know like we're, it's like sat on the front of the rake the so yeah, it's crazy. And then what we were doing many years ago. Um, when you have when you're driving cars really fast and dirty runways and you get chips. And you try to protect against it and we were trying to protect these very, these like Lamborghinis, we were putting, we were stupid, we were putting plastic like uh like the stuff you put on the front of the car on the windshield, uh. Because it was the only thing it works and it worked, but the, the, the visibility went down like crazy and it's it's amplified by the rake of the windshield because now you're looking through a much steeper angle and it's, you know, it's way easier we were only like 10. I remember at the end of the like, how do I know when to lift? Like when you see the blue flash of the porta potty lift because otherwise you can't, you can't tell what it is. But so, so let's, but let me, this is a long intro to to Fusion. So you talked about soda lime, which is either the standard glass that's in everybody's car window glass, right? Um, and then gorilla glass is a an upgraded version that that adds aluminum oxides, OK, and we'll come back to that because that's, I think there's a Pyrex angle, oh, which is fusion 5. Fusion fiber is borosilicate glass, which I know because I'm a cooking nerd, which is fundamentally sort of like Pyrex, right? So, um. Fusion 5 is a cool name. So you said you're not a branding company. It's pretty cool name. Well, uh, this is what problems is Fusion 5 trying to solve that maybe Gorilla Glass couldn't, let's say, yeah, so, uh, we're a glass company, yep, so we want to sell glass, and, uh, we told you about how the gorilla glass was on the inside and they still were using the regular soda lime on the outside to say we want to go after that. So how do we go go after that because we don't make soda lime, we only make tactical glasses in the company. So we, you know, continue to go engage, uh, the car companies kind of understand what the problems are and so they wanted weight savings and so a Boris silicate class by definition, um, is a less denser class, so it's about a 12% lighter for the same volume and soda line so. So that kind of got us into the right kind of glass family. Uh, so it was the first thing we had to be able to solve. Uh, second bo silicates are, um, much less prone to scratch. And, um, uh, that's important because you can drive your cars around you start they kind of gets uh pitted and now we're kind of putting cameras and things like that behind our windshields and so the camera's gotta work obviously on day one, but it's gonna also work, you know, year 2, year 3, 100,000 miles. So how do we ensure the material ages well, right? So more silk is gonna age better and so we went we're on the outside, so that's the area that's gonna be, be, uh, uh, engaged with the outside environment. Uh, so, so we knew we had to do that and, uh, because it scratches less, it's gonna, it's gonna go, uh, damage in a different way, right? So a normal glass when it, uh, when it had a, uh, rock hits it, uh, it's gonna fracture and then a crack runs and actually when you, when your windshield breaks, typically it got hit, it got, uh, but it didn't break right away. Uh, you need some type of other stress event like a flexure event or you go to a car wash and like, you know, cold water hits it and then you wake up in the morning and like there's a crack your windshields like super fru, right, so we wanted a, we wanted a material that, uh, crack propagation is very different and uh a bar of silk, it kind of fails in a very different way. Uh, instead of kind of, it kind of goes in a circle, spider that kind of kind of encapsulates the uh the flaw where the damage has been introduced. That's where it typically will go and, and, um, you know, kind of go through the glass, but it won't won't run in the same way that a soda glass was. So it just feels a little differently. OK. And then, um, you know, we, we have, we make gla*s. There's there's kind of two different ways to make gla*s. One is, uh, a process called float. Uh, Pilkington invented it many, many years ago, really good and expensive way to be able to make gla*s. We use a different process. We use a process called fusion, which comes with the name of the glass, uh, and this is basically instead of, um, horizontally making glass like float, we, we make it vertical, right. And so as a result of that, we have really, really good optics in the glass, so really low distortion, uh, surface is really good. This is why, uh, glass, uh, we sell glass for um your, your laptop screen there for the TV right there. Um, yeah, it's really, really good precise, uh, uh, surface and so that helps with the optics, uh, and you're putting, you know, you're looking through these, uh, windows now, uh, with, um, different camera systems and then that becomes harder as the ra angles get smaller or or or steeper and steeper and steeper because you gotta actually have to look through more class and so we help to solve. So we wanted a lighter and optics right so it actually is a windshields will fail on the edges. Uh, they'll also fail on the, on the surface and so that actually helps with that stress. Frank Marcus wrote another one too, I think it was CES last year, um, and, uh. The example he used was, and by the way, it's not like we don't live in a cold climate, but if your windshield is like covered in ice in the morning, you probably shouldn't throw a boiling pan of hot water on it because that will, it could shatter the the like the thermal shock, right from the hot water hitting the windshield if it had a big flaw in it, yeah, you probably would activate that flaw. OK. Um, it won't shatter though. It won't shatter. So, so you guys are trying to then replace the soda lung in the front and so it'll be a sandwich basically of this Fusion 5 glass with the gorilla glass on it. I mean, that's the kind of our ultimate uh construction. Can you can be able to make it super light, you know, more reliable. And is Fusion 5 has it hit the market yet? Like is there we have that's supplying it yet? Yep, it's, uh, it's a mass production today. We launched it about a year and a half ago. We kind of went to market at CES last year, but is so corny's been around for a long time. Boilla has been around a long time. Is it 100 years old? 100 years old. Borosilicates are more than 100 years old. Pyros, we invented that. I think it's like 105 or 6 years ago, so it's over 100 years old. So the patents run out on that, right? So I mean, because there are competitive, there are other people who make borosilicate glass of all different kinds. So what's the unique IP here is the production method or or is it like a specific um formula that you're using? Yeah, so the, the Bosilver would be a family and then you'd have a unique composition. So that's our Fusion 5 glass, uh, you, so you would patent the material, uh, you would, uh, patent the, uh, way to make it. You patent maybe some downstream processes as well. You kind of put all those things together, and then, you know, companies are always renewing, we're always renewing our IP, putting new IP on them, and then you kind of get an extension of the IP and you kind of go beyond that, that first useful patent life, OK, um. Again, so for um the car enthusiasts and the tech enthusiasts who also want to be cooking nerds, um, so Corning invented Pyrex like over, as you said, like over 100 years ago and I, and the whole family was, it was Pyrex, there was this really cool in the 80s, they were selling on uh infomercials. It was the vision. Visions yeah yeah it was like spaghetti boil the pot is the coolest thing. It's kind of a gray doesn't make you sold. It's sold it. And I, because I again, I'm a cooking nerd, there's a big scandal about what the new Pyrex is versus what the old Pyrex is, right, because the, the Pyrex, when you, when Corning was making it, was silicate, super scratch resistant. It's both the white like casserole pots, but also like the, the, the, the clear glass containers, right? But the stuff you can buy at Target. I think that the distinction is capital P Pyrex good. lower case P. Pyrex is the new stuff which is not as the thing that people are finding out, not as thermally resistant like they can shatter, I guess if you do think if you put a hot one into the cold water in the sink, but also that they're they chip in a different way. Does any of this make sense to you? Yeah, yeah. So, so you're right, corning was, and I think most of the listeners probably that's how they think about corning. They probably think about stuff that was the kitchen cabinets, right? And so actually a lot of different compositions, a lot of different, um, manufacturing processes to make the corre where the visions, um, but you're right, for most of the clear glass that was uh Borosilica gla*s. And so when you dropped your measuring cup or anything like that, it, it wouldn't break or if you went from the hot oven. And then or the cold freezer you kind of put in the hot oven or vice versa, you know, the glass wouldn't break. It was actually it was a uh when we discovered that for for some of the the corning where it was actually an experiment with these in corning we have these Friday afternoon experiments that all the scientists can do so they get kind of for afternoons, do whatever you want to do, right? And so this, uh, one scientist, he's like kind of was trying to go target a glass composition to to do something else. It wasn't obviously for Corning and um he kind of took it out of the oven and he dropped it and then break and he's like, well that's interesting and then that ended up going into the uh the consumer space OK kitchenware. So and, and there was a military application like nose cones of missiles or something. Yeah, that's a, um, we don't always talk about that, but yeah, but, uh, yep, that's a glass ceramic and um and um uh that's a material that you wanted to fail and it kind of turned into dust and then. OK. Um, I'm, I'm not a, uh, I'm not a cooking nerd, but I'm kind of a watch nerd, and when I think of like scratch resistant see-throughs, you know, sapphire crystal, why would, you know, in my understanding is this is, you know, closer to diamond than it is to to glass, like uh sapphire. What is sapphire and why don't you just use that since it seems like totally scratch resistant? Yeah well a a um sapphires, it's a, it's a scuse me, it's a crystalline structure. So when you have a really thick piece of it, it's pretty strong, but um if you cleave it, it's really easy to to break it just like a diamond if you cleave a diamond, right? And so um if you want to use that and consumer electronics folks have looked at using sapphire they want really, really thin pieces of sapphire and so as a crystal structure it actually will fail at a higher rate than the the gorilla glass does as a result of that. Um, we've used, we've always, always used the grill. I just, I just didn't know because it, you know, again, like, you know, diamond is like whatever, you know, 2000 on the hardness scale, and below that is sapphire because it's carbon blah blah diamond scratch. So yeah, but it's also got to be more expensive to, to create, I mean, especially if you're talking about something the size of a windshield. I mean, little glass watch faces, I'm sure. We actually do is we actually take classes and we put different optical coatings on them that can be nearly as um damage resistant to hard as so you'll see that on some of the new tech devices that are on on many of your wrists. Yeah, there's a name for it, but yeah, I saw some watch where it was like it's glass, but it's just as good and it's stronger or something just scratch resistant. Anything else you're working on you want to tell us about? Well, the big one was the was the optical fiber. That's the new one that I think is going to be a really big um inside the vehicle, you know, where, you know, our business has been growing is because there's just more displays in the vehicles, and those displays are much larger and uh there are a lot of safety tests that are inside the vehicle. You have to pass something called aI test, a harm impact test and so. You know, you, you, you drop your phone, that's a pretty small event for the glass versus passing the safety test inside the vehicle where you knee or a skull hits they take this head form and smash it in the glass and the glass can't break for it to be used in the vehicle. So we gonna solve that. We have a um. a version of grilling glass we called auto grid grilla glass to help solve that problem. But I think now the big problem is there's just a lot more glass around in the canopy of the vehicle. So, so you get a lot of light coming in, especially when the sun's behind you. And so how do you go combine, um, surface treatments on the glass so you can manage all this ambient light. So that's an area where we've been spending a lot of time uh with the car companies. And then after that, fingerprints. I was gonna say I was gonna make a joke you fingerprints, but that's a hard one. I mean just because fingerprints are hysterical because a lot of times you don't really see them until I spent a lot of time photographing the inside of cars and everyone's like, oh, you could have cleaned it. It's like you couldn't see it till I took the picture, you know. Well, I, the, the fascinating thing for me is because I've been in this business long enough to have witnessed the transition from analog controls to now all these screens, and I remember the Germans were so resistant to, that's why they started BMW start with I drive and there a command dial because they were like. Our cars are on the lawn at Pebble Beach, and we expect them to be there for the next 200 years. And you know how gross it's going to be when the, the, the screen that you have is, is covered in 200 years of fingerprint and grease and then whatever grooves you're you're, you're wearing into these screens. So did you, I mean, I was fascinated when you were talking about um the glass that you're looking at the long-term reliability and the, the failure. Do you look at that? In the same way for the inside of the vehicle, like, are you? Are you guys trying to do testing for what what it looks like after a Tesla Model 3 from 2017 has been swiped for for for 50 years or 5 years what that what that might look like there's actually a bunch of tests for that swiping motion that we do have to do before we uh before we go to mass production and the and the the surface shootings we put on them are pretty durable. They're gonna, they're gonna last beyond the life of the vehicle. So I don't think that's gonna be a big problem, but I, but you did bring up something that I think is interesting, so. Um, there's a lot more displays in vehicles. That was kind of the thing, um, you know, a decade plus ago, and they kind of got bigger and bigger and bigger and now like every car's got a screen and then there's like the escalade, which is just overload. I'm sure loves that, but I mean there's, I think there's 7 screens. There's 5 screens for the front passengers and each maybe 9 should get their own. But that's what the, now we're seeing screens, it's kind of getting boring that I got all these screens, so like how do I get back that kind of that that connectivity and that driving experience. So I think it's everything's kind of going full circle, like kind of the more economical cars, don't get the big screens and not a lot of um touch uh interfaces inside the vehicles like switches and knobs and things like that. And I think now more of those expensive vehicles, they're, they're going back to that. I still have to have the tech, but how do I go back to that. And so we have conversation with them and go, what's the material on that switch gonna be? And I think we're gonna see a lot more glass inside the vehicle because um when we talked, we talk a lot to designers as well and um. You know, go back to consumer, you know, you have the this glass thing in your hand, this phone, and it's got a glass at the front, it's got glass on the back, and there's a, a, a connection you have with that device. People just feel good about gla*s. It's like a great material set, yeah, uh, versus other materials that are out there. And so designers want to replicate that experience that you get with your phone inside the vehicle, you know, glass is like cool with the touch. It's an inert material, it can be cleaned, it's not gonna go, it ages really well. And so how do I get that into the vehicle and so we're, we're working with designers on how do they make more complex, more um inviting uh uh interiors in the vehicles. I think there's a lot of um a lot of great opportunity there. So more touch points, less in high-end vehicles, less screen square footage. I think they'll do both, OK, yeah. It's it, what he's saying is, you know, Eon famously said, you know, the best, uh, the best part is no part. So that's why he's made all his screens, all the screen to be dominant and getting rid of switches and knobs. But as we saw with Scout, Scouts like coming back and putting knobs and key switches, that's gonna be the, the future flex. That's gonna be what the luxury manufacturers like. We didn't do this, as you said, the all the Economys are just gonna be only because that's how they take the Thorns of the stons and to your point, and we're gonna put this like knob on top of it that's gonna light up or do something. But that's great. I love that. Talk to me about um. Head up displays and then do you, but do you actually believe that uh augmented reality, uh, virtual reality, like, are we gonna in the self-driving or increasingly autonomous age, we're all gonna be putting our heads back and watching stuff being broadcast on our windshield though, like will we get to the point where the biggest screen in your car is actually the windshield and stuffs projected on it because I I don't know. That's a great question. That's a great question. Um, so today, The displays are winning that race for connectivity. How do I like connect the car to the driver and the passenger? Certainly the displays are winning that. But, uh, head-up displays, HUDs could be a way. Maybe I'm going to integrate a transparent display into the windshield itself. Maybe I'm going to do something holographic and it kind of pops up. I think the whole front of the vehicle is a canvas for these designers to think about, well, how do I go, you know, convey connectivity to customers. So we actually have plays in all of those areas. We monitor all of them because we want to be able to pivot with the OEMs, uh, where they want to go. So we make mirrors that are gonna make the head up displays work. There's certain things the windshield's gonna have to be able to go, uh, ensure that set up displays work. And then you brought up AR augmented reality hood, so the HUD image is sitting on the windshield. But it doesn't look like it's sitting on the windshield. looks it's floating in front of the car and if I can get it to float like in way in front of the car, maybe as I'm driving the vehicle, you know, I can if I want to do, um, you know, maps and things like that, like, hey, I gotta get off at this exit and you see now, uh, the, the arrow pointing that way versus you have to kind of look down at the center screen or. And so there's probably maybe a safer way when you're in control of driving the vehicle. Yeah, Land Rover showed something years ago, but it was, you know, uh, you're driving through Paris and, uh, you know, it, it sees the Arc de Triomph and it like, you know, takes that and it, it identifies it in front of you and says, you know, lights up what it is, and then if you want to, you could like You know, gesture control, swipe down, and then it throws the Wikipedia page for Arc the Triumph onto the screen or reads it to you or whatever, and then you crash. Well, no, it's driving itself, but you know, you get like a self-guided tour of wherever you are. Yeah, I think there's something that you probably saw at CES, people are putting. Displays in the side windows of cars. So like as you're looking out the window, you can see all that information um and uh BMW did a whole thing at showing off their latest uh uh it's like a super hood. It goes like across the screen and yeah it shows off everything. I can't remember, but it goes all the way across the left to right but I guess the question I'm asking is there's been a lot of. I'm still waiting for to be a thing. Like I know a lot of the kids use it and the headsets are getting smaller. I'm talking about personal electronics, but from a hu and AR in the car. The physical limitations seem to be, it just doesn't look very good. Like even though we've been, we're now 25 years with the it's just not crisp. It's it's I think it's a fundamentally it's just not, it's gonna be enough, you're you're in daylight and you're trying to project. Bright or brighter, as bright or brighter than the image and it just looks, it just kind of, it's always looks kind of faint and, and, and not sharp. What's in your lab? What haven't we seen? Yeah, we're making them bigger, a lot more and kind of further down. That's the augmented reality of them that we are working on. But I think it's a, it's a really tough problem for the car companies. They don't um They can't just have only a hood or only a center stack inside the vehicle, you know, they, they gotta have all these systems in there with a lot of redundancy and consumer some consumers like HUDs, others like turn the word off. They're like, well, how do I solve for all of the use cases that are out there? So it's, it's, um, it's, it's tough as they're playing around with all the different technologies. And, and right now, you know, contemporary Mercedes and Audis use augmented reality on the like the center screen, like so the the navigation screen. And when I pay attention to it, it actually works really well. I just forget to pay attention to it because I'm looking through the windshield, not staring, but like, you know, it's good. So it's like, you know, make sure you're in this lane. It'll, it'll actually it'll show you a map on the, on the image, but it'd be better if it could be projected and they're actually they're starting to do that too with the head up they'll. Here's what's the automotive is that it's like it's like a graveyard of of of really awesome but ultimately unsuccessful, right? Like all these systems that all the manufacturers put in the cars, nobody uses that's like the button and I'm gonna wait 30 seconds faster that I just slipped my mind. I suspect that HUDs and true augmented reality are gonna come in the age when cars are fully autonomous and there's no more windshield. Like we're literally sitting in front of like, like a pod and it's just gonna show you want to see the road ahead? Great, hit the button, there's a camera view or you wanna watch a movie, poop, and then it just, it just projects on the screen and just like, you know, we're starting to lose. Uh, like, you know, there's a lot of folks in the series and that's one where, you know, I was talking about on the lawn in 50 years of Pebble Beach. And I'm like, well, why did you put a TV in there, the quality and I looked at like, no, they'll never get better than this, you know, it's really good quality. And the swayakers are doing, they're doing a good job of keep innovating. They're kind of making the sways brighter and brighter and brighter so they can work in all different types of use cases. All right. Well, this was awesome. Uh, thank you so much for coming in and chatting with us. Uh, we will. I guess guess about the cars that are coming with the optical fiber because mom's the word on your end. Well, it sounds like that's gonna be, you know, some big manufacturer will greenlight it first and they'll have a lot of brands when we're we'll definitely share with you here and then we'll also learned from that. Can't just look at the bottom corner of the windshield uh to see whether it's corny, except for the case of like the it's the supplier supply with technology, but it's fascinating stuff, um, you know, you're you're if you're an iPhone actually. is a non-iPhone. It's yeah, yeah, the other 2/3 as well. So you're probably already the technology might be listening to us or watching us on a device and fascinating stuff and I'm looking forward to again, for me the holy grail is how do you get the weight. Out of these cars, if you want EVs to, you know, you guys don't they don't, they don't have the light of like my Miata. Well, it's gonna take all of the manufacturers, all the suppliers to pull out a big shift in batteries is gonna be the biggest, but like you were talking about latency, you know, if you have every control is now on a screen, it's got to be ultra quick and so that's exciting for the moving the data faster. We're trying to do our part. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the number of times I'm like, why is your transmission so slow to go the cam bus, you know, so all right, Mike Koons, VP, general manager of Corning Automotive Glass Solutions, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you.
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