Exterior lighting is increasingly becoming a central styling differentiator while helping to improve safety through greater visibility. Magna’s Breakthrough Lighting solution featured on the thermoplastic liftgate known as Litgate, combines the company’s expertise in exteriors and lighting and offers new ways to personalise and allow consumers to interact with their vehicles. Magna plans to have the technology ready for production in 2023.

“Magna’s Breakthrough Lighting enables increased design freedom and features more options for brand differentiation that can elevate our customers’ experiences,” said Grahame Burrow, Global President of Magna Exteriors. “As the industry builds significant momentum around electrified and autonomous vehicles, we expect more desire for developments like this that are seamlessly integrated into exterior surfaces.”

Magna’s competitive advantage is its ability to create solutions leveraging a full-systems approach. Uniting Magna’s in-house capabilities in exteriors and lighting early in the vehicle development and design process creates synergies that allow for more holistic product development.

Breakthrough Lighting enhances the overall appearance as well as function of lighting by refining communication between the user, the vehicle and its surroundings including key differentiators such as:

Breakthrough hidden-until-lit light effects

Communicative, functional and decorative lighting

Moulded-in styling features and intricate textured surfaces

Extensive colour palette available, programmable to customer spec 

Breakthrough Lighting technology is applicable on thermoplastic material surfaces including polycarbonate and thermoplastic polyolefins. Through materials, coatings and processing advancement, the desired lighting effects are achievable on various exterior panels.