Trucking Industry Looking Forward to Neverfrost
Most Canadian drivers will first and foremost be impressed by Neverfrost’s antifreeze capabilities – finally, a solution to stubborn winter windshield frost! However, this particular characteristic is not what snatched up the attention of some players in the American trucking industry, who have recently signed on to have Neverfrost applied to their trucks. What the trucking industry noticed is that Neverfrost is impact resistant. This means that when small stones or other harsh substances are thrown at a Neverfrost-equipped windshield, the glass will not crack, break or chip. Graduates of auto mechanic colleges know that this is a rarity where vehicles are concerned!
If you plan to pursue dispatcher training at an automotive school in Toronto, you might want to keep tabs on the very promising Neverfrost, as it might be gracing the windows of your trucks one day. This is especially true for those working in Canada, where scraping ice off the windshield each winter morning can drive a car owner crazy.
What is Neverfrost?
Neverfrost is made using nanotechnology – the manipulation of objects on a molecular level. It is basically a transparent film applied to the outside of a car’s windows that prevents them from reaching temperatures low enough to freeze. Once applied, this film prevents frost from occurring and also deflects elements like snow and freezing rain. Another interesting fact about Neverfrost is its resistance to the impact of stones.
A Brief History
Neverfrost began as a student project at the University of Waterloo. A group of four engineering students – including Chong Shen and Khanjan Desai, the present co-founders of the Neverfrost start-up – decided that they wanted to ensure they would never have to scrape ice off of another car again.
“Cars have been around for a century, but this problem hasn’t been fixed. It was something so practical and we felt every winter morning we never had a solution,” says Khanjan Desai.
In early 2014, two of the four co-founders walked away from the initiative and left Desai and Shen to continue Neverfrost on their own. Desai and Shen later found out that their product had been chosen for the Y-Combinator investment program – a funding program that invests $120,000 USD into promising tech companies in exchange for a 7 per cent equity stake. The co-founders soon found themselves heading to California and contacting trucking companies to offer them the chance to experiment with their innovative product.
How Did The Trucking Industry Get Involved?
After many failed attempts made by Desai and Shen to sell Neverfrost to the trucking industry, they finally found a sales pitch that worked. During a meeting with a trucking executive, the co-founders of Neverfrost decided to fire a steel pellet at a truck’s windshield (which was sporting the Neverfrost film). When the trucking exec saw the damage – or lack thereof – he decided to give the product a chance. Truckers can now expect to see Neverfrost on big rig vehicles as soon as next fall.
What other possible inventions could make winter driving easier on car owners?
