Press a button and the BMW iX Flow changes from black to white, or to any shade of grey in between. BMW showed the concept car at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2022, a pre-production version of its all-electric iX sport activity vehicle with a body that recolors itself.
The trick is E Ink, the technology inside e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. On a Kindle it displays text. On the iX Flow, BMW laid the same kind of digitally controlled film over every outward-facing body panel.
How the film works
Think of each panel as a very large e-reader screen. BMW describes it on the car’s website: the body is laminated with an electrophoretic film containing microcapsules “the diameter of a human hair.” Each capsule holds differently charged white, black or colored particles, and they become visible when an electric field is applied. BMW calls the result an Electronic Paper Display.
The palette is narrow for now. It covers black, white and the greys between them. BMW says it is working on adding other colors, though the car’s own video shows the grey-scale version well enough. Viewers who want the color change itself can skip to about the three-minute mark.
What BMW is after
BMW built the Flow out of a push for options that let customers personalize a pricey purchase. The idea is a choose-your-color future where an owner is not locked into one shade for the life of the car. The carmaker is also trying to build the same reputation for electric vehicles that it has long had among petrol enthusiasts.
Anyone who has bought a black car and regretted how quickly it shows dirt will see the appeal. A button press beats a trip to the car wash only in the imagination, of course, but the concept does let a driver pick a different look in seconds.
Production is a separate matter. The iX Flow is a concept, and it is not expected to appear on a production car anytime soon.
