BMW and E Ink Reveal Color Changing E Paper Concept Car Moving From Flat Displays To Three Dimensional Forms For Automotive Smart Surfaces
BMW has teamed up with E Ink to reveal a color changing e paper concept car. According to press releases from E Ink's research group, this demonstration will showcase a giant leap toward transforming e paper materials from flat displays to fully three dimensional forms. This demonstration with BMW will first appear at the COMPUTEX computer exhibition in a special e paper industry section.
This collaborative effort has been going on for over 5 years and is intended to demonstrate the application of e paper materials on the exterior of automobiles. To show this step towards production a BMW iX3 Flow Edition was presented to the public at the Beijing Auto Show. This demonstration vehicle uses E Ink Prism black and white flexible display and shows what's near the stage of production for automotive use. This particular BMW has undergone the required automotive quality tests and has 8 user controlled animation settings, which change the look of the vehicle depending on how it is driven. The actual hood of this car will be on display to visitors at the exhibition.
The new concept car employs a new color formable E Ink Prism material which enables its applications on curved forms such as entire cars and wheels. This film can be stretched over and heat molded onto a curved surface using unique processes and allows an entire color scheme to be generated and changed based on driver inputs. While this concept is still under development, unlike the black and white displays it seems to display a much larger vision of the future.
Despite the color formable material being in the development stages, the concept car is built upon BMW's standard production line to showcase how the film can conform to an existing structure. This project is intended for E Ink to develop color formable materials that may also be applied on other non automotive products with curved forms. This product could bring a lot of flexibility and new possibilities for product designer's to come up with smart surfaces.
