Picture yourself driving a black car on a cool, overcast day. Suddenly, the sun breaks through, and the air begins to warm, causing the interior temperature to climb. With the press of a button, your car shifts from black to white, deflecting the rays of light, minimizing heat absorption and keeping the cabin comfortably cool.
No, this is not a feature of the latest James Bond vehicle, nor is it science fiction. It’s a product from German engineering giant BMW that uses E-Ink and could be available on the market in the next several years.
The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA, powered by E-ink. Photo: BMWSo, what is E-Ink, and what does BMW’s revolutionary new product mean for the paint protection film (PPF) industry? First, let’s start with the technology.
If you’ve ever used an E-reader like Amazon’s Kindle, you’re familiar with E-Ink. Also known as “electronic ink” or “electronic paper,” E-Ink, which was first developed in 1996, is a display technology recognized for its energy efficiency and its close resemblance to traditional ink on paper.
According to How-To Geek, “E-Ink displays are made of a thin film on top of millions of small capsules filled with particles floating in a clear fluid. These particles are all colored a specific pigment: in greyscale displays, those pigments will be either black or white.” The website goes on to explain: “Unlike an LED display, which uses colored light that is on at all times, E-Ink displays only consume power when the arrangement of colors on the display needs to change.”
Hence the ability to conserve energy, an important aspect in its application to the automotive industry.
What BMW has been able to do with E-Ink technology is nothing short of remarkable. By combining E-Ink with their own magic recipe, they’ve created intricate automobile display patterns in a wide range of colors, all changeable instantly.
Which means a black car on a brisk, cloudy day can quickly become a white car when the sun comes out. And all it would take is 20 watts of power, the equivalent of your basic household lightbulb.
The mastermind behind this technology, Dr. Stella Clarke, has a vision where “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.”
This would represent a groundbreaking change in automotive personalization, enabling owners to switch the color of their cars to match everything from the weather to their mood. But how likely is this, and should PPF professionals care?
According to Driven Car Guide, it’s very likely and could hit the market as early as 2027. BMW first presented its color-changing technology back in 2022 and has been very bullish on seeing it to fruition. In fact, earlier this year they unveiled an African heritage-inspired art car that takes color-changing to a new level.
As far as being a competing entity to window film, there are too many uncertainties right now.
For one, costs. PPF can be relatively pricey, true, but just wait until you see the price tags of the first color-changing Bimmers rolling off the assembly line. Then there’s the cost of repairs, which should also be considered. Unless you’re in the 1% you won’t be worrying about either of these problems in the short term.
And then you have regulatory challenges, like driver distraction. If you think cell phones are risky on the road, imagine a car changing color every few hundred yards. Even BMW has admitted that color-changing technology should only be allowed when the car is stationary.
Despite BMW’s ambitious attempts to bring color-changing cars to market, there are too many hurdles in the short-term to make it a viable threat to PPF. Until we see this technology applied to film as a protective agent with the ability to change colors, I’ll continue to remain skeptical.
But what do you think? Email me at vdriscoll@glass.com with your thoughts.