BMW i Vision Dee: watch BMW's concept sedan change colors on the fly at CES 2023
BMW has finally let us know what Dee is at CES 2023, and its most captivating feature is one we've already seen
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: BMW i Vision Dee
⚡ BMW held a keynote at CES 2023 where it showed its i Vision Dee concept
🤖 Arnold Schwarzenegger made a special appearance
🧑🎨 The Neue Klasse architecture will feature a color-changing E ink body
🖥️ It will also have a full-windscreen HUD interface and side window displays
🚙 BMW cars will start to adopt the new design language in 2025
BMW made a splash tonight with a keynote that set the tone for the CES 2023 cars we’ll be covering on the show floor throughout the week – and I’m not just saying that because I was sitting in the VIP box. Although it was brimming with ‘80s nostalgia, BMW somehow made a motivational speech about emmissions reduction from Arnold one of the less memorable parts of the show.
Weeks of increasingly strange publicity stunts all started to come together when the company used Schwarzenegger as mere set dressing to tell a story about a time when cars were more about character than a list of specs on a page. And while that story was told a little clumsily, it seemed to resonate with the audience, including myself. But it wouldn’t have worked had the car itself underwhelmed.
BMW’s i Vision Dee combines the color-changing iX Flow E ink paint technology with the i Vision Circular concept we’d seen before. Nevertheless, we got a more extensive look at the dynamic body panel color adjustments that brought the concept a little closer to reality. It’s fitting the automaker put Herbie on the stage tonight, as the rhythmic automatic paint jobs and blinking front grille could not have reminded me more of the little Love Bug. Ironically, even more so than VW’s own showing.
The head-up display will also play a much larger role in BMW’s new design language, which it calls the Neue Klasse architecture, and may even rival LG’s 2023 OLED TVs. We saw the entire windshield occupied by a HUD interface drivers can control by voice or using “phygital” inputs (phygital being a nauseatingly cutesy way of combining the words “physical” and “digital”). Likewise, the side windows will have some kind of projection display.
The hardware and software powering the i Vision Dee concept are being developed at the same time by one unified team – a fact BMW CEO Oliver Zipse was quick to stress is important for the success of any automotive tech project at this scale. You’ll begin to see it bleed into the main BMW lineup in 2025.