People are applauding the news that BMW might bring its innovative E Ink technology, which allows for a car’s color to be changed via a smartphone app, to market soon. While we get all the excitement about such an innovation, we think it could be used by criminals to hide from police.
Police chase involving a stolen Corvette ends in a swamp.
After all, when suspects flee in a vehicle, law enforcement call out the color of that ride for help tracking it down. If criminals can change its color repeatedly, they could potentially throw off police and slip away.
Speaking with Australian automotive site Drive, the engineer behind BMW’s E Ink, Dr. Stella Clarke, said it could come to production models as soon as 2027. To be clear, that’s not a formal announcement from the German automaker but instead conjecture by one of its engineers, so take that with a grain of salt.
Predictably, a lot of people think that kind of technology would be cool and we understand why. After all, you can change the look of your ride effortlessly to suit your mood. If you want your ride to stay cool in the summer you can choose a lighter shade.
Emergency vehicles could use the tech to make the entire vehicle flash from one color to another. People could have their ride’s color switch back and forth to help with locating it in a parking lot.
Surely there are a few other practical applications, other than not having to get your vehicle wrapped or resprayed to change its appearance. But such technology surely won’t be cheap, something Dr. Clarke agrees will be true, at least for the first while.
If this tech sounds familiar it should. BMW showed off a concept car featuring E Ink back, called the BMW iX Flow, at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
It’s an interesting innovation, just we know like all tools it could be used for crime as well as benign applications.
Image via BMW
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