•The touch of a button, a driver can change the shade of the cars exterior, allowing the colour to shift between the colours.
•The effect is created by applying an electrical charge to microcapsules which are suspended within a liquid encased in the wrap.
The German car firm, BMW has unveiled a car that changes colour, with white, black and few shades of grey as the only colour options for now.
The vehicle is wrapped in what is basically a form of e-paper, which BMW developed in cooperation with e-ink.
The BMW iX Flow SUV model uses the same technology as Amazon’s Kindle e-reader.
The firm said it was “bringing the car body to life” where at the touch of a button, a driver can change the shade of the cars exterior, allowing the colour to shift between the colours.
“You decide what you want to wear, what your social media status is – and you can decide what your car looks like,” said Stella Clarke, BMW’s project lead on the vehicle.
Ready for the next step in innovation ⚡️ Join us as we unveil our future innovations around the CES 2022. #BMWCES #BMW #FromSoultoSoul #BornElectric https://t.co/tsUKqXf92g
— BMW (@BMW) January 5, 2022
Clarke added that the technology could be used to locate the car by making it flash when the driver is looking for it, or to display the vehicle’s battery capacity externally.
On hot sunny days the driver can go for a brighter shade instead of a black, heat-absorbing one.
How it works
The effect is created by applying an electrical charge to microcapsules which are suspended within a liquid encased in the wrap.
The capsules contain particles of white and black pigments .The colour alternates depending on whether a negative or positive charge is applied, causing either the white or the black pigments to collect at the surface of the microcapsule.
The concept car, which is not available for public sale, was unveiled at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where different automotive firms increasingly advertised their products alongside mobile phone, gadget and TV screen makers.