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BMW Unveils Colour Changing Car | E-Ink technology
Reading time 4 minutes
Categories Driving News » Entertainment »
We are hiring! Are you an experienced technician? Join our outstanding team »
BMW Unveils Colour Changing Car | E-Ink technology
Reading time 4 minutes
Categories Driving News » Entertainment »
Innovation plays a crucial role in the automotive industry, with some of the world’s biggest car manufacturers constantly exploring new ways to advance their offering and the sector as a whole.
And now, at a live demonstration event in Munich, BMW has introduced the world to the first ever colour changing car. Using state of the art E-Ink technology, the German brand used their BMW iX model to create the BMW ix Flow to illustrate how this technology can shift between different colours depending on the mood and preferences of users, and potentially for practical reasons in the future.
Cars are a reflection of our personalities, and while drivers can already choose the original colour of their car and some vehicles allow users to change the colour of their interior at will, allowing the exterior colour to be easily changed takes this customisation one step further.
Allowing more personalisation, decision making and freedom over what their vehicle looks like is likely to prove popular with consumers, and BMW has taken the first steps into making this a reality.
In order to make the colour changing car, E-Ink was used by the team at BMW.
E-Ink technology was first introduced in 1997, and over the years has been used in a wide range of products including laptops, digital whiteboards, kindles and more.
Available in both grayscale and colour, over the years E-Ink has become more and more popular, particularly because it closely resembles printed paper, making it more attractive to consumers. Plus, due to the low amount of energy it uses to operate, it’s far more efficient. This was one of the key reasons why the team at BMW opted to use it when developing the world’s first colour changing car.
The team behind the BMW ix Flow took this E-Ink technology and applied it to their prototype.
The colour changes are possible thanks to a specially designed body wrap that is tailored specifically to the car – in this case, the iX. Within the body wrap, millions and millions of microcapsules are contained, with each containing a negative white pigment and positively charged black pigment. Then, by applying an electrical charge, the white or black pigment will be triggered and rise to the top – resulting in the vehicle’s exterior changing colour. The technology used in this example only used the colours black and white during the demonstration in Munich.
But any two colours could have been selected. The technology also exists to contain up to four colours within the capsule, and theoretically, one day a full rainbow of colours will be possible.
The type of technology used is also incredibly energy-efficient, needing only a small amount of energy to make the colour change and none at all to maintain it. Even more impressive is that for this demo, the iX’s wheels changed colour along with the main exterior of the vehicle. This was thanks to ingeniously designed, small power banks hidden within the wheel itself to conduct the colour change.
If you’re expecting this kind of tech to be rolled out any time soon, then unfortunately you’re going to be disappointed.
This technology is still very much in its infancy, but there are hopes that the more it develops, the more likely it is to one day reach production.
As well as the aesthetics, colour changing cars could potentially offer several practical benefits, too. Colours could change based on the weather, to increase a vehicle’s battery life and even cut the amount of cooling and heating required from the vehicle’s air conditioning. Just by the virtue of changing the colour, fuel and energy consumption can also be reduced – meaning money could be saved.
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