Dr. Stella Clarke, better known as the brains behind BMW’s “colour changing car” is a bona fide expert but before we get to her invention, the story behind it and its applications are almost equally intriguing. Here’s a run down of an afternoon with ‘the ultimate colour changing machine’ herself.
Adam Shaver, GM of BMW New Zealand introduced Dr. Clarke and gave us a hint about her New Zealand connection. Turns out that even though she’s an Aussie from Sydney, her father is of Maori origin and he offered the room a native greeting to begin the presentation. Following this, Dr. Clarke talked about her education pathway, beginning with a Bachelors degree at University of New South Wales, a Masters degree at Penn State and then a PhD at the Technology University of Munich!
Being in Munich, this is where she first stepped into the car industry. Dr. Clarke’s specialty was haptic technology at the time and a certain Bavarian manufacturer was on the hunt for a specialist in the field. It was there that Dr.Clarke joined BMW where she has worked for over two decades now.
Dr. Clarke’s claim to fame came from a passion project that she was working on in her own time. Describing herself as “a tech lover rather than a car girl”, Stella wondered if the e-ink from e-readers could be applied to cars. Working on panels at home, she presented her idea at BMW’s internal science fair, winning funding from the company to begin prototyping. She presented her findings to the bigwigs at BMW in March 2020, beginning the week in Munich and ending it in Sydney where she returned during Covid.
While back in Australia, her passion project continued, turning her to make a video of this idea being applied to the BMW Vision iNext. In 2021, she returned to Munich, hitting the ground running with the creation of the iX Flow e-ink, the biggest challenge of which was to adapt these colour changing panels to the curvature of a car. Once successfully prototyped, BMW was asked to present this concept at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) and it even earned a spot on Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2022. Dr. Clarke’s BMW then found its way on to Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night show where it eventually earned the nickname of “the ultimate getaway machine”.
Thus far though, the car’s party trick was changing from black to white, with a grey in between. Dr. Clarke then embarked on a journey to incorporate colour into this technology, the pursuit of which created the Vision Dee. Only one was built and it went from idea to prototype in six months! Dr. Clarke was given the honour of unveiling Vision Dee at CES, a rare opportunity for an engineer to present their work at an international show.
BMW then trawled through their archives and brought out Esther Mahlangu, a South African artist who worked on one of BMW’s iconic Art Cars, a 525i in 1991. Esther was appointed to create a modern rendition of her work, this time she worked on a 7-Series with Dr. Clarke then adapting her invention to mirror Esther’s art, creating the i5 Flow Nostokana which featured 1345 colour changing panels, a far cry from the more humble beginnings of the project!
Why isn’t this technology in production yet you may ask, that’s because testing is still in progress for temperature and humidity resistance mainly. Then there’s the other issue of stone chips. Controlling the colour changes was the easiest part of the development said Dr. Clarke as all that is done through an in-car computer and an app.
What if this technology was in production cars, what would it be used for? The colour changing panels can already adapt to patterns and liveries making them a must-have for the company vehicles. Dr. Clarke envisions a world where simply looking at a car can make the vehicle display things like availability status for ride sharing and charge levels for EVs just to name a couple of implementations! It’s already inspired high-end fashion, architecture and aerospace industries where applications have been found in everything from personalisation to passive cooling of surfaces.
What’s next for Dr. Clarke? Well, she’s currently working with BMW’s in-house musician, Lorenzo Vitale to elevate the colour experience, both visually and audibly. There’s more to come from BMW’s colour department too with Stella’s invention striking a chord with the paint division. In the meantime though, she continues to harness her relentless passion for innovation. A trait that was demonstrated to me as I watched her ask about and then note down the ingredients to The Hotel’s colour changing cocktail, created in her honour.
Words by Matthew D’Souza
