When you’re immersed in the world of automobiles on a daily basis, it’s easy to get wrapped up in things such as wheelbase lengths, horsepower numbers, driving range, on-board capabilities, and all-around comfort that we lose sight of the simple notion that vehicles can still be works of art and extensions of our personal expression.
The idea of exterior color often gets lost in the mire, but this week at the CES event in Las Vegas, BMW aimed to prove that what your car looks like is still something to be appreciated. The new i Vision Dee is a color-changing concept car that lets you chose from 32 different colors. Last year at CES, the German marque showed off the Dee’s forerunner, the iX Flow concept, which used the same technology, except you could only get three shades: black, white, and gray.
Using E Ink, the new mid-size sedan features 260 individually-controlled color-changing panels across the entire car, with 15 panels on each of the rims and a base color of white. Additionally, the car also features the Mixed Reality Slider, which in tandem with the new advanced Head-Up-Display allows users to immerse themselves in different locales using the augmented reality projection right on the windows.
These new features seem like something that would’ve come out in the ‘80s, when new innovations could afford to be superfluous rather than stem from practicality, sustainability, or convenience. But nowadays, the i Vision Dee serves as a nice reminder that simple thrills can still be attained. While it’s unclear whether or not consumers will want to pay the extra money for this type of tech, BMW has announced that the Head-Up-Display will extend the full length of the windshield in its production cars beginning in 2025.
