Different colour at the touch of a button
At the CES in Las Vegas, BMW caused a stir with its “BMW iX Flow featuring E Ink”. With this model, the driver can change the colour of his vehicle at the touch of a button. This is made possible by special bodywork foiling. Stimulated by electrical signals, the electrophoretic paint brings different colour pigments to the surface, through which the car body takes on the desired colouring.
Known from e-readers
This technology is mainly known from e-readers. The coating of the vehicle contains several million microcapsules that contain negatively charged white pigments and positively charged black pigments. Depending on the setting, either the white or the black pigments are deposited on the surface of the microcapsule by stimulation with an electric field, thus giving the body the desired colour.
According to the manufacturer, in addition to design aspects, matching the vehicle colour should also help to reduce cooling and heating requirements of the vehicle air conditioning system.