At the CES consumer electronics trade fair in Las Vegas, the German carmaker BMW presented a prototype of its iX electric SUV, which can change color. She named it iX Flow.
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BMW has introduced a car that changes color. | Video: Reuters
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“The digital experience will not be limited to displays in the future. There will be an increasing intertwining of reality and the virtual world. With BMW iX Flow, we are reviving the car’s body,” said Frank Weber, head of development, about the car.
According to the carmaker, the color of the car expresses the driver’s personality and the possibility of changing it opens up additional space for creativity and self-expression. “The driver will have the opportunity to express different aspects of his personality or even his current mood and re-communicate them every time he gets in his car,” says Stella Clarke, BMW iX Flow project manager with E Ink technology. “Like fashion or status on social media channels, the vehicle then becomes an expression of the different moods and circumstances of everyday life.”
However, the carmaker also mentions the advantages regarding fuel or electricity consumption. When it is warm in summer, white or light shade generally reflects sunlight better and the car’s interior should not get so hot. In winter, on the other hand, darker colors are more advantageous in this respect. This could help reduce air conditioning or heating consumption, and in a purely electric car, such as the iX SUV, it can also help extend the range for a single charge.
The only question is how the police and traffic inspectorates will look at the whole matter – the color is, for obvious reasons, stated in the technical card and any change must be registered.
A special sticker with the same E Ink technology, used by Amazon Kindle e-book readers, allows for a smooth color change. There are millions of microcapsules on the modified iX, the diameter of which corresponds to the thickness of a human hair. Each of these capsules then contains negatively charged white and positively charged black pigments. “Depending on the stimulation by the electric magnetic field, either white or black pigments will move to the surface of these microcapsules, which will give the body the desired shade,” the carmaker writes in a press release.
The advantage of the technology is that it does not need any electricity to maintain the chosen color. Electric current is only needed to change the color itself.
The color effects seen on the iX body are created by combining individual “e-paper” segments. “After the segments are applied to the body and the power supply generating the electric field is connected, the entire body surface heats up and seals, which ensures optimal and even application of the selected color shade,” says BMW. The company is currently developing the technology so that it can also be used in production cars.
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