The advancements in plastics recently can be seen in new applications, especially in automobiles. Auto designers have pushed pushed the need for more wide-ranging and complex uses of the material:

"Sabic's new Visualfx resins use two-shot molding and hydrographics. The former (photo below, in an Opel Corsa) is a method of layering resins with hardware or wiring embedded inside, which can enable glowing switches and knobs with translucency and internal light sources. The latter is a method of "immersing a part in an ink pattern floating on water like a film. The pattern adheres to the part [and] can wrap around the part to provide better coverage than with traditional in-mold decoration applications."


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via Designcentre