Think of e ink displays and you are likely to have visions of devices such as e-readers, e-notes, or other smart electronic gadgets. That was until automaker BMW decided to take things to another level. Also, it isn’t an internal display that the E Ink panels will be lending support to. Instead, it is the car’s entire exterior that has been done up with the panels and the result is stunning, to say the least.
The German automaker named it the BMW iX Flow concept car that uses E Ink’s electronic paper technology, the same found on popular e-reader devices such as the Amazon Kindle. With the electric SUV, the electrophoretic technology of the E Ink display is used to change the exterior color so that the SUV changes its color from black to white and then back to black again almost instantaneously.
Also, while the BMW iX Flow electric SUV is very much a concept car, BMW did not rule out the same making it to the production lines ever. BMW’s Director of Development Frank Weber said, “Digital experiences won’t just be limited to displays in the future. There will be more and more melding of the real and virtual. With the BMW iX Flow, we are bringing the car body to life.”
In reality, it is a self-adhesive film that is pasted onto the car’s exterior that changes the color and not the actual paint of the car itself. In any case, the car can only be ordered in black or white and the panels will be able to interchange the colors at the flick of a switch from the inside. While it can be a lot of fun changing the colors, there is a lot of practicality in it as well. For instance, keeping the exterior color to white will make sense on a hot summer day while changing it to black during snow will make the car preserve internal heat while also enhancing its external visibility.
These apart, the external E Ink skin can also be used to display some information though that would more befit a car used as a taxi than a personal vehicle. It’s like a particular color will denote if it is available for ride-sharing and so on. In fact, possibilities can be immense though the ground reality is, it is still a concept vehicle and no one is sure when, if at all, it is going to reach markets. In any case, a color-changing concept car did manage to achieve what its makers perhaps had set out to achieve, that of making a splash at the CES 2022, which it did in style.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.