Download BMW’s New iX Flow Is a Color-Changing Concept Car; See How It Looks Right Here! for free
Would you like it if you could change the color of your car at the touch of a button? Sounds unreal, doesn’t it? Well, German automaker BMW thinks not, and at this year’s CES event it showed a car called BMW iX Flow with its newly developed color-changing technology. The car uses the company’s in-house E Ink technology, which allows it to change color in the blink of an eye. Here’s how this all happens.
BMW iX Flow with colour-changing body panels
In an official blog post, BMW reveals that the iX Flow is equipped with E-Ink prototype technology that relies on electrical signals for the process. The new color-changing system uses electrophoretic technology to change the surface pigment when stimulated with these electrical signals. It’s a similar technology used in eReaders like Amazon’s Kindle devices.
“Digital experiences will not be limited to displays in the future. There will be more and more a fusion of the real and the virtual. With the BMW iX Flow, we bring the bodywork to life.” said Frank Weber, the company’s current CEO and member of its board of directors.
A tweet from Out of Specs Studio shows the color-changing technology on BMW iX Flow in action. Here’s a look:
Currently, the electrophoretic-based E Ink technology can only: change from white to black and vice versa, using negatively charged white pigments and positively charged black pigments. In addition, the new E Ink technology can also change the color of individual body panels of the car, giving it a two-tone appearance. Imagine you leave the house in a white SUV and come back home in a nondescript looking gray-black. How cool would that be?
This technology allows people to give their cars different looks, designs and patterns depending on their preference or ‘mood of the day’. But it also has pretty practical use cases.
For example, because white doesn’t absorb much heat, drivers can set the color of the car to white in warm regions and reduce the use of air conditioning. In winter, they can blacken the car to absorb more heat from the environment, reducing the need for the heating system in the car. In addition, the change of colors can reduce the amount of energy consumed by the car’s electrical system, and thus fuel consumption.
As for the availability of the color-changing car, BMW finds it difficult to answer that question, despite being attractive and useful at the same time. Therefore, the company will need some time to further develop its E-Ink technology before applying it to its commercial vehicles.
What do you think of this concept car? Would you like a colour-changing car yourself? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and stay tuned for more interesting stories.
