NEWS – Am I the only one who thinks that new car colors are boring? White, black, silver, and some grey. Ugh. I’d love to be able to choose a custom car color without it costing a fortune, how about you? Over the last couple of years, E Ink and BMW have been working together on a color-changing concept car: the i Vision Dee. This unique car uses E Ink’s flexible E Ink display to change the car’s colors, not just black and white but several other colors.
BMW is using E Ink’s “Multi Color ePaper Film” called Prism 3 to create a customizable exterior. According to E Ink, the film “utilizes colored particles which are electronically controlled, so surfaces appear traditionally painted yet they are truly dynamic”. The innovative film is also rugged, flexible, and fully programmable. It allows the manufacturer to cut and shape it to fit the car and to use eight colors in a range of temperatures 0-50 C. Cyan, Magenta, White, Black, Yellow, Red, Green, and Blue (color is dependent on the voltage used). You can use a mix of these colors to create more variety.
Do you know what else? The film “takes zero power to hold its appearance and only requires power to switch colors”. There are two types of films: segmented and sheet. The segmented film can be manufactured to have a circle, triangle, or abstract shape which allows the designer to customize each segment. The whole sheet changes color when using the sheet film. So in the future, not only can you change the color, but you can create patterns and transitions!
Fascinating, right? There’s actually so much more to this car than its color-changing features, but I wanted to focus on the color-changing aspect because I thought that this was such a clever way to use E Ink tech, and I miss cars of different colors. LET THERE BE COLOR!!! The world is a much more interesting place with color. Visit BMW’s website on the i Vision Dee to see how the E Ink Prism 3 display is used.
Check out the following YouTube video about the i Vision Dee:
