FUTURE CARS WITH COLOR-CHANGING TECHNOLOGY

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     Hello guys. Till now, we are seeing many car models in different colors individually. And, we are buying cars based on our color selections. Hereafter, we can just buy a car and can customize or change the car color what we like. You might think it is impossible. But now, it comes to possible. You are just amazed by imagining the cars being white color in the morning and black color in the evening just by pressing a button.

BMW car with color-changing technology

THE FIRST CAR WITH COLOR-CHANGING TECHNOLOGY:

                                                     

The first car with color-change technology is the BMW iX flow based on electrophoretic technology to change color. The BMW iX Flow is based on the electric iX SUV model.BMW designed the advanced type of car: a color-changing EV that will discreetly disguise itself while making a silent, engine-less escape. The German automaker Tianyuan Li designed the iX Flow electric crossover at CES 2022.

 Tianyuan Li,Exterior Designer

   

BMW works with a company called E-Ink(Electron Ink) to develop a BMW iX flow model car.  E-Ink is a high-quality, full-color reflective electronic paper display technology developed by MIT students that are used in Kindle readers and commercial displays for such brands as Sony and Amazon. The working of e-ink is to cover the wrap over the entire body of the SUV. The wrap has different color pigments that, when stimulated by various electrical signals lead to a change in the color.

E ink company

HOW DOES E-INK TECHNOLOGY WORK IN THE CAR?

          Basically, e- ink technology depends on the electrophoresis process. First, the e-ink display wrapper is covered all over the outer parts of the SUV car. A specially designed body wrap that contains millions of microcapsules suspended in a liquid that is roughly the diameter of a human hair. These capsules contain color pigments with differently charged particles as positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles.   

ELECTROPHORESIS

   

     When an electric charge is applied to the wrap, depending on whether it is a positive or a negative charge, the colors will change. For example, if the positive charge is applied to the wrap, the negatively charged black pigment attracts towards applied white pigment, and positively charged white pigment in the capsule is repulsed and pushed at the top of the fluid layer(it shows white display).   Conversely, if a negative charge is applied to the wrap, the black display will show by following the same phenomenon.

If both positive and negative charged particle is applied to the wrap, the mixture of white and black pixel display combines to form a grey display.

     As of now, we can just change the car color in just three colors (white, black, grey, and its combination colors based on the ratio of applied charged particles.) But, it will be customized to any color in the future by exploring more technologies.

BMW'S color changing concept car:

BMW unveiled "world-first color-changing SUV car" at CES(consumer electronics) show in Las Vegas.

Benefits of E ink technology:

                         E ink is electronic paper technology we already see in e-readers like kindle, kobo libra, etc. E ink is a proprietary electrophoretic technology and the electronic paper display is patented by E Ink Corporation. E ink is a liquid substance, that responds to the electric impulses to enable color-changing text or color-changing displays on flexible surfaces.

                       The larger E-paper screen saves more electronic power compared with the same size LCD screen.

 

                   E Ink's technology is also referred to as "bistable". Bistability refers to the fact that an image on an E Ink screen is also retained even all power sources of the device will be disconnected. Display only consuming power when something is changing. For example, when reading an article on an eReader, power is consumed only tuning to a new paper but no power is needed while reading the article. Bistability significantly reduces the rate of consuming power, this is the main reason devices using E ink have such long battery life compared to the LCD screen.

                       

                             E ink displays are flexible, shatterproof, and lightweight. E ink is paper-like, readable in sunlight, wide-angle view, and has no backlight.

image credit:eink.com

image credit:eink.com

Difference between E-ink and LCD display:

    Finally guys, I hope you got something special about the color-changing cars and E ink technology. 

If You like to learn about metaverse please click this link

                  Role of mechanical engineers in the "METAVERSE" project.  

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Image credits:

•     BMW(for car images)
•     eink.com