Windscreen wipers could become a thing of the past after an Italian firm unveiled a concept car featuring a self-cleaning windscreen at the Geneva motor show today.

A prototype of the technology was shown by Fioravanti, its makers, whose founder Leonardo Fioravanti was once a designer at Ferrari and worked at the legendary car design innovators Pininfarina. The patented technology was shown as part of the company’s Hidra concept car.

The windscreen uses a special oxide to repel water and employs an array of tiny nozzles that project high-pressured water and air to clear away dirt.

The window is comprised of several layers. The first is a thin veneer of titanium dioxide that filters UV rays and spreads water out across the length of the windscreen rather than concentrating it into droplets or rivulets. This serves to improve the driver’s line of site. The second layer pushes dirt to the edges of the screen, which is then blown from the surface of the car by small nozzles. The third layer consists of transparent sensors that detect dirt and activate the self-cleaning system. The final layer deploys an electrical conductor to power the entire apparatus.

According to its designers, the invention could make windscreen wipers unnecessary, but questions have been raised as to whether the device will be able to cope with insects, salt and other substances that might come into contact with a motorist’s windscreen.

Matteo Fioravanti, design and engineering director for the Italian company, said that a fully functional version of the design would not go into production for at least four years. At present, Mr Fioravanti said, there are problems with the durability of the windscreen that are significant enough that “though you wouldn’t have to replace the glass every day you might have to replace it every few weeks.”

Roger Vincent, spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, told Scotland on Sunday: "Any new development like this would have to be very thoroughly tested before being allowed on the roads here. It's a matter of making sure it can cope with the conditions here. Good visibility is an absolutely vital part of road safety.

"But if someone can find a better way to clear the windscreen than what we have right now, that would be progress. You see people trying to move off after just having cleared a little patch in the window in order to peer out of it and that is no good."

Fioravanti has not announced how much the technology is likely to cost but has conceded that it is likely to be expensive in any early stages of introduction.

The history of windscreen wipers

* An American inventor Mary Anderson is credited as the inventor of the windscreen wiper, which she patented in 1905.

* By the early 1920s windscreen wipers were fitted as standard in cars across the United States and Europe.

* The first intermittent wipers - which had an adjustable speed - were introduced in 1969.

* In 1970 Saab introduced headlight wipers.

* One of the most recent innovations is rain-sensitive wipers that activate automatically. They have been adopted by Chrysler, Peugeot, Citroën, Toyota, Mercedes, Honda and Renault among others.

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