BMW has unveiled its vision of the future of the digital car: a colour changing vehicle with an interactive heads up display the width of the windscreen.
The carmaker pitched the idea of the car as less of a simple mode of transport and more of a digital companion and an integral part of life, with chameleon properties that allow the owner to change its colour depending on their mood.
The BMW i Vision Dee - which stands for Digital Emotional Experience – isn’t just a futuristic concept though. BMW chairman Oliver Klipse said some of the technology would be used in its new generation of cars, the Neue Klasse, that are set to go on sale from 2025.
The German carmaker showcased the new technology at an event on the opening night of CES in Las Vegas, pulling out all the stops to show its potential. Actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was joined by Knight Rider star David Hasselhoff, with a cameo from the latter show’s car, Kitt, and Disney classic car Herbie, hammering home the point that BMW’s technology has a personality of its own.
“Dee embodies the next level of human-machine interaction, a concept that cannot be simply dismissed as science fiction because it will inspire our Neue Klasse,” said Mr Klipse. “What is really important to me is Dee reminds us that you always have to consider both the product and the digital aspect together as a whole. I strongly believe that you cannot separate software from hardware development. Otherwise, you won’t create a seamless digital experience.”
One of the key pieces of technology is the new advanced heads-up display, controlled by a mixed reality slider, that can provide essential information to drivers such as speed and navigation data at its most basic level. Go up a level and you can add messages, texts and calls to the heads up display, while another level offers augmented navigation data such as collision warnings and potential obstacles. At the top level, it can create a virtual world on the windscreen, fading out reality.
The concept vehicle at shown off at the event included e-ink panels similar to those shown last year on the BMW i X Flow. However, the i Vision Dee developed the idea further to include not only black and white but 32 colours that allow the car to wink, blink, and transform into multicoloured hues depending on your mood - or, it seems, the car’s. The e-ink technology has a low power requirement when switching colours, and requires none to hold the colour, making it easier than expected on the vehicle’s battery.
“The world is not black and white,” said BMW engineer Stella Clark, who was behind the colour changing technology. “It’s purple, it’s red, it’s yellow, it’s brown, and it changes constantly.”
Mr Klipse said the i Vision Dee wasn’t just nother show vehicle, and insisted the company was ready for a future that was “much closed to reality than you might imagine“. “ Everything you saw, felt and hopefully experienced tonight is much closer to reality than you might imagine,” he said. “Merging hardware with software with AI, merging virtual experience with real driving pleasure to create a digital and emotional experience with your car as an ultimate companion: that is the future of a car company,” he said.
BMW is set to launch the Neue Klasse vehicles, its new generation of models that are designed for pure electric mobility, with a sedan and a sports utility vehicle, following with other models shortly after. “It will be a quantum leap in terms of technology, design, and sustainability,” Mr Klipse said. “We will leverage the opportunities of digitalisation in the development of the Neue Klasse, and by doing so, we will make the car an even more essential part of your everyday life.”
