Who could use some good news? I feel like we all could right about now. And this is the kind of good news that I feel many of us will see as something that has been a long time coming, a final breaking of an idiotic tyranny, one that nobody ever asked for or wanted, but we endured for years. I’m talking about a dark, sinister menace that has been stalking the automotive world for about a decade now. A greedy, cruel material that has taken the interiors of cars hostage for far too long. I’m talking about Piano Black, and I’m happy to say that it appears its reign of terror is finally ending.
Are you familiar with Piano Black? Fundamentally, it’s just a plastic. A very glossy, shiny plastic, I suppose named for the extremely glossy black laquerwork found on the grand pianos that you likely see multiple times a day.
You know, one of these:
Look, it even has three pedals, just like our favorite cars! I always forget that pianos have clutches.
I’m not really sure exactly who decided that that sort of deep-glossy look was what was needed for car interiors, but whoever it was must not have had fingers or maybe they lived in a hermetically-sealed chamber, free of all dust, tiny particles of dried skin, anything that can cause tiny scratches, or, really anything that exists in reality, because Piano Black and normal human reality simply do not mix.
Piano Black is a nightmare. It’s a nightmare because it’s an inherently unforgiving material, and when it comes to cars, I can’t really think of any worse qualities than unforgiveness, especially in an interior material.
And yet, somehow, it was showing up everywhere. Even the Mitsubishi Mirage had it!
Piano Black is terrible stuff. It’s not just me saying this; the global consensus seems to be that nobody likes Piano Black! While it may look great in brochure pictures and carefully-staged photo shoots, when it comes to it actually in a real car that gets driven, it gets covered in fingerprints, micro-scratches and macro-scratches, it gets cloudy and dull and just looks awful. And because car owners know what it’s supposed to look like, because they have a vision of the platonic ideal of Piano Black in their heads, the disparity between what they know it’s supposed to look like and how it actually looks is driving people nuts.
This material is so demanding of constant upkeep and maintenance, it becomes a miserable burden for people. And because it’s often all over dashboards and around controls that require actually touching, it’s always visible and always being smudged or scratched or whatever.
Look at all of these videos dedicated to the fruitless pursuit of trying to keep Piano Black interior panels looking like they hypothetically are supposed to:
There’s more, there’s so many more videos like this, because Piano Black is about as durable and scratch-resistant as an extremely thin slice of Nova Scotia salmon, but without the charm.
Your car’s interior should be able to take some use and abuse; it’s going to be touched and prodded and things will fall on it and things may be spilled and your fingernails will rake over it, and a good interior material should shrug all this off with the cool, cavalier aplomb of an astronaut drinking a cocktail. But not Piano Black; Piano Black is a fussy little purebred dog that vomits if you walk past it too fast, and its hair and teeth fall out if it drinks water that’s too tepid.
Fuck Piano Black.
Thankfully, carmakers seem to be finally realizing this, as Piano Black seems to be finally disappearing from new car dashboards. In fact, at least one major automaker seems to be addressing this directly: Kia. In fact, last year Kia’s head of design, Jochen Paesen, announced that they would be eliminating the high-gloss material in the upcoming EV9, and at this year’s LA Auto Show, which is currently happening, Kia’s reveal had much the same to say:
If you jump to 5:12, you can hear them say the center stack “swaps the previous high-gloss surfaces for a sophisticated texture,” which is a clear reference to Piano Black interior material. They also mention better resistance to fingerprints, another dig at the glossy garbage.
I can’t speak to why Piano Black had such a cruel and persistent grip on our car interiors for so long. I don’t understand how automakers could have seen how poorly the material ages from normal use and still decided to keep offering it. It feels like a willful disregard for how cars are actually, normally used.
But now, finally, I think the Piano Black empire is crumbling. That doesn’t help those of you still saddled with this miserable, uncooperative, cruel plastic, but at least we can hope that future generations will be free from keeping microfiber cloths in their car, fecklessly and uselessly wiping at fingerprints that are doomed to re-appear moments later.
See you in hell, Piano Black.
Piano photo via Yamaha
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Related: Fuck Alcantara on touchpoints. Headliner? Fine. Steering wheel? NOOOOO
Totally agree on touch points. My Camaro Zl1 has an Alcantara steering wheel and shifter, feels nice to drive and grippy. Also sucks, gets matted, you have exfoliate it to clean. A real PITA to keep clean. Not to mention knee pads, arm rests, door cars… thankfully it’s not my daily otherwise I’d have to clean it daily, no fun…
My 24 Ridgeline Black edition has been contaminated with this stupid stuff, it’s not too pervasive and on the dash it kinda stays out of the way… but… It is on the center console by the cup holders, shifter buttons and the drive mode button. I absolutely hate it there, will probably swap it for the base Ridgeline trim eventually which is silver ish. Annoying having to keep a microfiber towel in the center console for this silly stuff…
There’s a lot of things that I don’t like about people and one of them is that we’re gross and this piano black BS and touchscreens do nothing but highlight that grossness by displaying fingerprints. I hope the other manufacturers follow this lead.
This just made me think that some of the biggest complaints about the GR86/BRZ is the interior (instead of more valid complaints like the clutch feel or throttle calibration or that you can’t use the standard gauge display with the nannies off), but it’s comfortable (with a little modification to the seats), styled decently, has good ergonomics, has actual buttons and switches for pretty much anything you would use while driving, and there’s no damn piano black. Sure, the fit and the materials could be a little better quality, but it’s not like pieces are falling off and the damn thing cost under $30k OTD and weighs well under 3k lbs without having to have a carbon fiber tub or the interior space apparently designed to be just big enough to accommodate the 95th percentile male spider monkey.
Apparently I am in the minority in not caring too much. Is it ideal? I guess not. But, everyone complains about rubbermaid interiors and the price of vehicles. This is a cheap way to make it not rubbermaid. We can’t just use metal or wood or carbon. Technology is cheap but labor is not. Those require much more labor than injection molding. Maybe things will change with wide area 3d printing, basically bulk printing of parts. Check out the company Seurat for an example. It’s basically 3D printing meets multi-cavity injection molds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llAcqwD2TBY
I’m pretty sure the reason it lasted so long is because it was cheap. And it looked classy in studio pics.
At least fingerprints and scratches help cut down the GLARE !!!
Yeah, this is the worst part. Special place in hell for people who put shiny surfaces where they will reflect the sun into the driver’s eyes.
I hate those shiny surfaces!! I had a job test driving cars for a company working on battery swapping tech. Basically I was tasked with running down the batteries and having them swapped out over and over and over.
I found several car models had trim that would reflect the sun right back into my eyes. I got some of my blue Scotch painters tape and covered all the shiny areas.
I’m disappointed that Kia came up in this article instead of Mazda.
Mazda really downgraded the 3rd gen 3 when they switched from fake textured carbon fiber to piano black. The older trim has a pleasant texture and never looks dirty or scratched.
Rest in piss you won’t be missed
https://youtu.be/OJOQYrXJF7o?si=KH60q0a3364ejLRe
I don’t know why someone doesn’t do textured surfaces that replicate some of the metal adornments often seen on cars of the ’50s. Not only do they look nice (IMO), would stand out against the other manufacturers’ terrible choices, but the texture makes it both more resistant to scratches and is better at hiding them, let alone fingerprints.
How about textured metal?
Even better, but I try to keep my expectations realistic.
But…
I love Piano Black!
It’s so shiny and smooth! It looks great, and it’s both classic and classy. I don’t understand all the hate.
GET OUT
I mean, I don’t love it, but neither do I hate it. It’s not as nice as some finishes, but a damn sight better than plenty of others.
Did nobody here live through Volkswagen’s “soft touch” era of the early 2000s? At least piano black doesn’t peel or get gummy.
I hate materials trying to pretend to be other materials, and piano black plastic is cosplaying for either glass or actual lacquered wood – not sure which is worse.
I only hope that they won’t replace it with something even worse, like that cursed fake rubber finish that was really popular a few years ago. The thing becomes a gummy nightmare shortly after the warranty expires.
On that note, I hope one day a trend starts where phones are built to REALLY survive on the real world. What’s the advantage of making a gorgeous S24 Ultra out of titanium if I’ll have to hide the material under a plastic/rubber case just so the screen wouldn’t shatter when I miss my pocket and it hits the ground (this is how three separated phones of mine died, until I relented and started to use cases on my new phones).
I’ve never understood why Apple, Samsung et all refuse to notice how many people put rubberized cases on their phones but won’t offer a “base” level phone that’s clad in grippy rubber. And it’s not like many people keep their phones for more than a few years anyway, so any material degradation is a non-issue.
Years back, I had a Motorola that came with a rubber finish back and I loved it. Never cracked the screen b/c it was so easy to hold onto, it would stay in my pockets, etc.
Selling phone cases is big business. That should be all the explanation you need
The BlackBerry KeyOne had a grippy rubber back, but by the time it came out, nobody cared about them
Except me. I still miss my Blackberry and would do anything for that firm to be viable again. For professional communication, there was nothing better; that physical keyboard was everything.
Me too, actually, I never even owned a BlackBerry until the KeyOne came out, had several iPhones before that, but wondered if I would be able to type faster and more accurately with keys instead of a touchscreen, and it turned out, yes, yes I could. So, I had a KeyOne and a Key2, and then BlackBerry died and I had to go to back to just touchscreens. I’d have a Key3 or Key4 right now if it was an option.
Unihertz makes a compelling option, but I’ve heard things about CCP-mandated spyware that scares me away from them, unless someone knows anything different
It’s time for the finish whose time has come: live moss.
Ah, so we are swapping piano black for Vintage piano black, since it becomes textured with age.
I hate the black. My mom has a grand piano from the 60s- we thought it was black, until a gift (in lieu of a new car) was a 25k restoration. Pianos arent black- its a gorgeous dark stained wood, with woodgrain that shows when the sun hits it. That would be okay.
And why did it get such an expensive restoration? because my dad found out that a new equivalent would have cost more than a new corvette.
Matte black plastic all the plastic things. I don’t need soft touch anything besides the seats.
My Focus has a gigantic expanse of hard plastic for the dash top (or whatever it’s called). I love it. I almost never actually touch it (who is constantly touching this area anyway that its so important?!) so it doesn’t bother me what it feels like, and it’s super easy to keep clean, just wipe it off.
Preach! My F-150 has 1 acre (approx .75 football fields) of plastic atop and as the dash. My fucks-over-time are basically an asymptote approaching zero – a windex wipedown (the windshield does get dirty with all the breathing and humidity and such) doesn’t bother it any more or less than a sensual armor-all massage or a hasty wipe from my 120-grit hands, or most realistically, nothing at all. Vinyl gator-skin in my rental-spec truck? bring it on. It’s a genuine luxury not to care.
I luhhuhuhove the aluminum trim in the Z4. I love how cold it gets, how solid it feels, how it doesn’t reflect a damn thing or ever show a fingerprint unless I’ve got enough grease or oil to leave one on anything anyway.
Lower end appreciation – my Focus has aluminum colored plastic inserts, and once I got past the yeah it’s fake part, I was down with it. No fingerprints ever, I have zero worries I’m going to hurt it, and it looks fine for what it is.
Haha I think we were having the same sentiments towards each other at the same time in different responses
Right? 🙂
I always wonder: when exactly did people stop seeing vehicles as machines for doing something, and start seeing them as these objects to be sorta theoretically appreciated?
And worst case scenario, it gets scratched enough to bother you, pop it out and hit it with some aluminum rattle can paint.
BMW knows how to make a damn interior, that’s for sure
Caveat buffor: not all “microfiber” clothes are created equal. Ask me how I learned this on my first OLED TV.
One time in college, for our dress rehearsal for one of the choral groups, when we got to the hall (not our usual rehearsal space), the Steinway & Sons grand piano on the stage still had its protective cover on it, so we removed it haphazardly.
Later, we got yelled at by the guy who was…I guess, basically the superintendent for all music equipment in the university? He showed us how to fold the cover carefully so that it is not exposed to any dirt or whatever.
He explained that the last time they got that piano buffed cost them ten thousand dollars.
…that is to say, fuck Piano Black, and also I hope a digital piano that is affordable and scientifically aurally indiscernible from analog ones comes out sooner or later.
One time at college(drama school) I managed to drop a Steinway & Sons grand piano from the second story loading dock of a theatre. The sound it made was magnificent, there was a stunned silence and, for the only time in my life I received a round of rapturous applause. In Basingstoke.
There didn’t happen to be a cartoon cat underneath it at the time, did there?
Sadly not, although I suspect that the eyes on stalks thing might have happened at a number of insurance companies.
Ten thousand dollars?!? Dang… that’s the same as how much it cost to detail the Lancia Stratos HF Zero for the Petersen Museum: https://youtu.be/PRHT1KcFQ-A?si=EIv1QxfcA4Ccj34x
Everybody’s throwing out their black plastic utensils over toxic chemical concerns, so I wonder what’s in the piano black stuff?
Frozen Liquid Death.
Figuring out a way to sell hard, shiny, monochrome plastic as a “premium” material is marketing wizardry on the scale of turning brown industrial-grade diamonds into jewelry by calling them “chocolate”
Just wait till we tell you about the history of Lobster….
My grandfather used to like to scoff at lobster and say, “that’s what the prisoners eat.” He was born in 1913, but I’m pretty sure that still predated his time. (He would eat it anyway.)
There’s a difference between discovering that something poor people eat tastes good, and taking something that’s always been considered cheap and undesirable and inventing a fancy-sounding new name for it and giving it a slick marketing campaign. Hell, caviar started out that way, too, as did pretty much everything on the menu in a typical Sicilian restaurant.
Hard, smooth plastic used to get derided in automotive reviews as being “Fisher Price” grade until automakers branded it “Piano Black”, it wasn’t any inherent “goodness” that made people suddenly realize they liked it, it was the name and the marketing that did that.
Another in the long line of ersatz luxury finishes gone. That they’re all just plastic at heart is what makes them so annoying in my book.
The worst had to be the “chrome” wheels on my father’s Explorer that turned out to be basically plastic wheel covers bonded to perfectly good alloy wheels. This travesty was considered up-level even.
Thank you Sweet Baby Jesus.
I see a red car
And I no longer want it painted Piano Black…
The only way to properly deal with piano black is to wrap it
That’s the only good thing about it—it’s a nice smooth surface to cover with something else.
Thank the Lord.
Unfortunately I’m sure it will take Stellantis 3 years to get wind of this, and they’ll probably return us to painted silver plastic.
But man, Piano black sucks so bad when dealing in new cars. Customers test driving them dragging their purses across the trim panels, lot porters forgetting to clean dust off new vehicle deliveries, and oh my GOSH the all the fingerprints we have to clean every day.
Bring back the original carbon fiber: Wood
This. If there is the option I always spec interior wood trim.
Correct takes, both of these
Whoa, real wood is an option in this day and age? Rolls or what?