Oven System Wins Pace Award

For the second time in a row a Dürr product has won the Automotive News PACE Award. The EcoInCure is designed to cure complex car bodies with superior paint quality faster and more efficiently than conventional ovens. Designed to exceed the needs of drying both traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and electric vehicles (EVs), the oven addresses customer requirements such as topcoat paint quality and improved overall curing performance.

"We are very excited that our technology has been recognized as a cutting-edge innovation that shapes the automotive industry," says Mark Murray, director of sales and marketing, Dürr in North America. “Dürr’s EcoInCure stands for a new generation of car body curing. It not only ensures the best surface quality but is also by far the most sustainable oven system on the market thanks to the oven design and potential use of renewable electricity.”

EcoInCure changes the production approach from line-oriented production to flexible and modular production with scalability. It is an optimized solution for curing all vehicles, especially electric vehicles, within the required process time and meets specific treatment times for paint curing, adhesive curing, steel and aluminum treatment. Avoiding high air velocity on the freshly painted surface provides significant reduction in paint waviness in long and short waves. This advancement improves paint surface quality by 50%. Because of the cross transport of the car bodies, the oven length can be reduced by almost half. The number of connecting conveyors is reduced, resulting in a smaller overall footprint and a reduction in building footprint (at least 5%).

With the electrically heated EcoInCure oven, energy savings of 50% can be achieved compared to a conventional gas-fired oven. With a zero-carbon footprint using renewable electricity, it is a sustainable oven. The Dürr technology is already being used in various plants around the world, the company says.

The 29th annual PACE Awards were presented by Automotive News. The competition was open to suppliers that contribute products, processes, materials, or services directly to the manufacture of cars or trucks. The Automotive News PACE Award is accepted as the industry benchmark for innovation.