BMW unveils car that can change colour
Stella Clarke, the project lead behind BMW's E-ink colour-changing cars, looks at the BMW i Vision Dee concept car during a keynote address in Las Vegas on Wednesday. AP / Reuters / AFP
BMW unveiled the prototype of a car that can change colour and showcases digital features like projecting driving data across the inside of the windshield.
The German luxury automaker's BMW i Vision Dee, revealed at a splashy kickoff on Wednesday evening for the CES conference, previews technology that Chief Executive Oliver Zipse said would be put into production in 2025. BMW plans to launch a new lineup of electric vehicles, which it is calling the Neue Klasse, or new class.
The BMW concept was very much a show car, with elements that could be challenging to put into mass production at competitive prices. But Zipse told a packed theater at the Palms Casino that BMW "will bring this technology into our Neue Klasse ... in serious production."
One of the most striking features of the concept was a dashboard that had no screens. Instead, the dashboard has one digital slider that controls images projected on the car's windshield. At the highest level, the windshield could show a digital, virtual world instead of the reality of city streets.
"Digital leadership is not about who has the biggest screen," Zipse said. That point of view is at odds with most of BMW's luxury segment competitors, starting with electric vehicle pace-setter Tesla Inc, which has made a large, high-definition screen the central feature of its vehicles' dashboards.
This car, called i Vision Dee, was presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas at an event attended by "Terminator" actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. BMW unveiled last year at this same show a car that could change hue but only from white to black and gray in between.
But the body of the new car can change in a rainbow of colors, in one solid hue or in stripes or checks. BMW i Vision Dee is just an idea for now but it is supposed to shape the design of future cars from the luxury manufacturer.
For example, having driving data such as speed or direction flash on the windshield is scheduled to be an option as of 2025. BMW has also raised the possibility of projecting augmented reality images on the windshield and turn it into a full-fledged screen with technology that mixes "real and virtual worlds."
The idea is to use software to create "the ultimate companion" offering a personalised driving experience, said BMW chief Oliver Zipse. The name Dee is an acronym for digital emotional experience. Schwarzenegger joked about a prototype brimming with all this new technology.
"I was a little concerned because in most of my movies the machine was the enemy. Now they For a final flourish, BMW showed off the latest application of the E Ink technology."
The i Vision Dee car has 240 separate colour cells that can change individually. In one moment, the prototype was a light green shade, then dark purple, then red with white racing stripes.
Reuters / AFP
