In collaboration with E-Ink, the specialist in electronic ink for e-readers, BMW presented the iX Flow concept car. Its body is able to switch from black to white and vice versa, all with one click. So a gadget or a real utility?
In the 2010s, car tuning was at its peak with all kinds of innovations and more or less flashy transformations. Among them was the chameleon paint which, when applied to the bodywork, made the car appear to change color depending on the angle of view.
In 2022, the spray paint is over and electrophoretic technology is used, a technical term for electronic ink developed in 1997 by E-Ink, a company created from scratch by researchers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and used on digital e-readers.
At CES 2022 in Las Vegas, BMW caused a sensation with its Flow concept car, designed in conjunction with E-Ink. This is the iX electric SUV, the body of which has been covered with a film incorporating electronic ink. This is made up of millions of micro-capsules whose diameter is equivalent to the thickness of a human hair.
These microcapsules contain negatively charged white pigments and positively charged black pigments. An electric field travels through the bodywork as a whole and, depending on the setting chosen, causes an accumulation of white or black pigments on the surface. It is thus possible to vary the color from white to black, passing through several shades of gray.
Beyond the technology, the difficulty was to apply this film uniformly over the entire body made of curves and salient angles. For this, the film was cut into segments placed one by one manually.
Weather and customization galore
But what is it for you will tell us? In the immediate future, nothing, if not a technological feat. But in the future, this so-called chameleon body could adapt to weather conditions. Thus, during hot weather, the body would dress in white or a light color, in order to avoid overheating of the passenger compartment and overconsumption of air conditioning. An interesting theoretical wish but which needs to be verified.
Today, “The color chosen for a car is an expression of the driver’s personality”, we are told at BMW, which already offers a “Wide spectrum of colors” exterior for its range of vehicles. However, some customers of the brand express “The desire for a very expressive, extravagant or sporty exterior appearance”. As Stella Clarke, project manager for the BMW iX Flow, points out, “In the future, new technologies will offer a whole new freedom of decision. This will give the driver the freedom to express outwardly different facets of his personality or even his pleasure of change, and to redefine that every time he sits in his car ”. And to conclude “Like fashion or status announcements on social media channels, the vehicle then becomes the expression of different moods and circumstances of everyday life”.