
White, black, and gray are the top three automobile colors worldwide, in that order, which only goes to show how uninteresting car consumers are. This is due in part to the desire to blend in and in part to the fact that sober-colored automobiles retain their worth the best over the long run. With a brand-new concept car that can change color at will and employs e-ink to create facial emotions with its grille and headlights, BMW is attempting to solve this chromatic dilemma. It can even fill the full windshield with a head-up display.
The BMW I Vision Dee, which was revealed at the CES technology expo in Las Vegas, is also relatively small. While obviously from the future, the I Vision Dee takes current technology in the form of a head-up display (HUD) and virtual assistant and looks to see where it might go before the end of this decade instead of checking all the usual concept-car boxes (a foldaway steering wheel; autonomous driving in a mobile lounge; aspirations of flight).
The new model ups the ante by employing 240 color e-ink screens, each with 32 color possibilities, which improves on the grayscale, black-to-white capabilities of the BMW iX Flow concept displayed at CES 2022. These are produced by US company E Ink using a so-called ePaper film that is laser-cut and then attached to the bodywork and wheels.
The end result is an automobile that may be any color you choose on any given day—or, if your creative fancies demand it, show a segmented or graded design employing many colors simultaneously. Similar to your Kindle’s screen, an only uses energy when changing states (or in this case, color). No further energy is needed once the colour has changed.