- BMW aims to launch customizable E Ink color-changing cars within the next three to five years.
- The color-changing tech requires very little energy but still needs to be vigorously tested.
- The E Ink tech could reduce heat in cars by switching from dark to light colors quickly.
Have you always wondered what you’re car would look like if it was a different color, but don’t want to pay thousands to have it wrapped or re-sprayed? Well, BMW could be just a few years away from making customizable E Ink available on production cars.
The German brand first unveiled its intriguing color-changing ink in early 2022, and since then, it’s been improved and can display intricate shapes and patterns finished in several different colors, all of which can be changed on the fly. While many had thought the technology would never be commercialized, the engineer who developed it said “Yes” when asked if it could launch in three to five years.
Watch: BMW Reveals How They Covered An iX In E Ink
“The vision would be to bring it to a broad customer base, and the dream is that in a car factory, you no longer have the traditional spray-painting cabins, but rather everything gets [E Ink] and every car can do every color,” Dr. Stella Clarke told Drive during a recent media event in Australia. “The truth is it’s probably not going to be the most price-effective thing in the beginning, so I could imagine it starting off in a selective market and then hopefully broadening out.”
It’s not just the idea of being able to personalize a car’s color on the fly that’s intriguing. Dr. Clarke says owners could turn their cars from black to white in hot weather to keep them cooler. What’s more, the system requires very little energy to operate.
“It’s powered with electricity, and each little segment needs two contact points and you apply a small voltage between them to change the colors, but when you take the power away the color stays there,” she explained. “When the car is off, it stays the same color. It doesn’t need energy to be on! No light can do that. And to change the color of an entire vehicle doesn’t require much energy at all, you only pull about 20 watts, which is about the same as a single light bulb or one LED strip in the door.”
Of course, there are many safety concerns that need to be addressed. For example, lawmakers around the world can’t have cars flashing different colors distracting other motorists, so Dr. Clarke thinks it’d be best if the E Ink can only be changed while the car is static.
We can’t help but think that repairing any future production car with BMW’s E Ink would likely be rather expensive, but that could be the price of style some are willing to pay.
