The BMW i Vision Dee concept features colour-changing body panels and an extra-large customisable HUD
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The BMW i Vision Dee concept features colour-changing body panels and an extra-large customisable HUD
Note: This article was first published on 5 January 2023.
No CES would be complete without a couple of concept cars and here's one from BMW. This is the i Vision Dee, a car designed to give fans a peek at what's possible in future BMW cars.
To start, Dee stands for digital Emotional Experience and the aim, according to BMW, is to use technology to create a strong bond between owners and their cars. And that means loads of customisation and interactivity.
To start, the body panels of the i Vision Dee are changeable thanks to E Ink technology (yes, the same tech used in e-book readers). This isn't a first for BMW because last year's iX Flow was capable of the same.
However, this technology has been improved so instead of just black and white, users will be able to choose from 32 colours and that will allow for nearly endless customisation options.
Also customisable is the iconic BMW kidney grille. Again, using E Ink technology, the grille can change its form to convey happy or sad faces.
This extends to the side windows too. As BMW showed off, as people approach the car, the side windows can display an image of the driver's avatar.
Like most concept cars, the interior of the i Vision Dee is bare and devoid of any physical switchgear. BMW expects future users to control their cars mainly using voice commands.
However, as BMW has always been a brand focused on driving dynamics (after all, it calls its cars the ultimate driving machines), there's still a fairly common-looking steering wheel. And to help drivers make the most of their surroundings, the windscreen features a gigantic heads-up display that is highly customisable.
There are five levels of customisation which BMW calls the Mixed Reality Slider, and drivers can use it to show driving information, navigation, weather, and more. In practice, it looks more like a giant AR display as opposed to a traditional heads-up display.
While the i Vision Dee is purely a concept and won't be put into production, BMW did say that we can expect to see some features trickle down to production models in the next few years.
For example, it said that they would roll out some version of the heads-up display that would span the full width of a windscreen as early as 2025.
