Automotive Glass and Smart Glass Research Report, 2025

Automotive Glass Report: Dimmable Glass Offers Active Mode, Penetration Rate Expected to Reach 10% by 2030

This report comprehensively analyzes the status quo of the automotive smart glass industry, covering (smart) glass function classification, industry chain, cost structure, policies, global market size, core suppliers, and typical application cases of automakers. It also conducts in-depth research and judgment on the future market prospects and technology trends of automotive glass.

1. Penetration Rate of Dimmable Fixed Sunroof Is Expected to Reach 10% in 2030

From January to July 2025, panoramic fixed sunroofs (including standard and optional) were installed in 2.776 million passenger cars in China, a like-on-like increase of 40.9%, with an overall penetration rate of 22.4%. In contrast, dimmable panoramic fixed sunroofs were installed in 132,000 passenger cars, and the expected annual penetration rate is only 1.6%.

Seen from fixed sunroof installation data, as an important configuration to enhance sense of cockpit space and technological atmosphere, panoramic fixed sunroofs accurately align with the architectural characteristics of new energy vehicles. A high chassis tends to compress head space, while large-size fixed sunroofs can effectively alleviate oppression and enhance the sense of spaciousness, catering to the aesthetic preferences of current consumers, especially young groups, for a premium and technological feel. Although dimmable fixed sunroofs are one of the most intuitive solutions to solve heat insulation and sun protection problems, currently the excessively high additional costs and the dimmable technology route that has not yet achieved economies of scale have prevented dimmable fixed sunroofs from becoming a "mainstream standard configuration".

However, against the backdrop of rising acceptance of panoramic fixed sunroofs in the overall automotive market, dimmable fixed sunroofs still have significant market potential. As dimming technology becomes mature and stable, cost ramps down, and cost performance stands out, the penetration rate of dimmable fixed sunroofs is expected to reach 10% in 2030, being installed in 2.6 million vehicles correspondingly.

2. Dimmable Glass Integrates Environmental Situation Awareness System to Achieve Automatic Adjustment

The adaptive light-sensing technology of automotive dimmable glass perceives environmental changes via multi-source sensors and automatically adjusts transparency of glass. It upgrades car windows from a single wind-shielding component to a dynamic interactive interface that can intelligently manage light and privacy.

By sorting out production vehicle models that can enable adaptive light-sensing adjustment functions, the environmental situation awareness sensors used include light sensors/ultraviolet sensors, vehicle attitude sensors, intelligent driving perception hardware, etc.
Light sensor: Responsible for perceiving light intensity of external environment, which is the foundation of automatic dimming.
Ultraviolet sensor: Specifically used to detect ultraviolet rays, it is the key to judging sun protection needs. The system decides whether to trigger sunshades, dimmable glass, or partial shading according to ultraviolet intensity.
Intelligent driving perception hardware: Spatial relationship perception. Including cameras, radars, etc., it is used to recognize objects such as pedestrians and vehicles around the vehicle and judge their distance, providing data support for active privacy protection.
Vehicle positioning and attitude sensor: Spatial-temporal and attitude perception. Combined with GPS, gyroscope and other data, it obtains vehicle location, heading and real-time attitude information.

The sensor data are sent to the vehicle's processing unit to be calculated with algorithms (e.g., the "multi-dimensional judgment" of Yangwang U8L and the "3D sun model" of MAEXTRO S800), and finally generate instructions to accurately control transparency of glass.

3. Automotive Glass Integrates Projection/Display Function for Viewing, Navigation and Other Purposes

Based on transparent car window display technology, automotive windshields, car windows, and fixed sunroofs are upgraded from traditional automotive glass to interactive transparent displays, providing users with functions such as navigation/vehicle status display, viewing, drawing, and weather inquiry. For example, AUO launches the Virtual Sky Canopy, a product which seamlessly integrates large-scale transparent Micro LED displays into the sunroof, supports display of images and links with side windows to create a surround theater-like panoramic visual effect; Fuyao Glass's projection display fixed sunroof can display high-definition images in full color, creating an exclusive "private theater" for users; BOE's 12.5-inch flexible transparent OLED interactive magic window adopts transparent OLED display technology, with a visible light transparency of 45%, a display brightness of up to 700nit, 100% full color gamut, and supports the expansion of system functions such as drawing and graffiti, navigation and positioning, weather inquiry, and photography.