For those of you not in the know, Dr. Stella Clarke is the brains behind BMW’s “colour changing car” but there’s so much more to her story. However, before I take you there, I had to actually get to the venue for our afternoon with ‘the ultimate colour changing machine’ herself.
Our more loyal readers will know by now that getting to a place is always a bit of a challenge if your name is Matthew D’Souza as is mine. Knowing that BMW were hosting Dr. Clarke’s presentation at The Hotel Britomart, I knew I had only a short bus ride that separated me from said hotel. Having bravely decided that I would ditch Maps for this one, I overshot the bus stop and then had a sizable walk to arrive to the Hotel. The hilarity didn’t stop there however as I attempted to enter the Hotel through a small fire escape door in the corner of lobby rather than the grand (and cavernous) entrance way that most guests would use. Anyway, I ended up at the upstairs conference room on time.
Through the door, I was greeted by Avery and Jennifer from Pead who swiftly directed me to the bar where there was a nameless but rather interesting drink on offer. In honour of Dr. Clarke, the Hotel Britomart’s bartenders had created a non-alcoholic colour changing cocktail! More on that later but first, a cup of tea for me. Soon after, the curtains parted and in came Dr. Stella Clarke.
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. It was there that Dr. Clarke joined BMW where she has worked for over two decades now.
Specializing in haptics in her early years, 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 like that.
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 featued 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. However, this invention has gone on to inspire the high-end fashion, architecture and aerospace industries, where the colour changing technology is used for everything from personalization 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 audially. 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.
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Words and some photos by Matthew D’Souza, other pictures courtesy of BMW New Zealand.
