Remember BMW‘s E Ink tech that lets cars effectively change paint colors on the fly? It could be coming to an actual BMW available in a dealership near you in a few short years, according to an engineer behind the tech.
Speaking to Australia’s Drive, BMW engineer Stella Clarke affirmed that “three to five years” is a feasible timeline to bring E Ink to Bimmers destined for showrooms. Counterintuitively, the move could simplify manufacturing, as every example of a particular model would get the same E Ink, which could then be changed to whatever shade the customer desires.
“The vision would be to bring it to a broad customer base and the dream is that in a car factory, you no longer have the traditional spray-painting cabins, but rather everything gets [E Ink] and every car can do every color,” Clarke told the outlet.
The tech is also said to be quite energy-efficient—changing the color of an entire car apparently uses just 20 watts, or the same amount of energy as a single lightbulb. Using the same material seen in e-readers, Clarke does admit that E Ink won’t be cheap, at least not in the early stages.
Clarke says she invented E Ink in her attic during lockdown before pitching it to her employers. At CES in 2022, E Ink made its debut on the iX Flow, an iX that could go from white to black and any shade of gray in between. Later that year, it made Time‘s List of Best Inventions 2022.
In addition to potentially simplified manufacturing and the obvious personalization benefits, E Ink’d cars could have some practical uses. Clarke quotes turning a black car white on a hot day to keep it cooler, or having your car flash different colors to more easily find it in a parking lot. Rideshare drivers could have their cars be one color while they’re on the clock and an entirely different color while off it. However, the BMW engineer also acknowledges some potential safety and legal hurdles with the technology.
“Safety is important, it’s got to be safe,” she acknowledges. “In moving traffic, you don’t want all the cars flashing around and being a deterrence, so you’d have to bring in laws that say you can change your car while it’s static, but not while it’s driving. It’s going to be very country-specific.”
Considering even Audi’s configurable daytime running lights sometimes run afoul of U.S. safety standards, good luck getting NHTSA to be cool with a 3 Series that can change its entire paint job on the fly. Also, I can’t imagine law enforcement would be too thrilled at car identification becoming that much harder.
In unrelated news, professional getaway drivers collectively now have a new favorite automaker.
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