Frank Stephenson is a refreshingly honest person as he’s not afraid to speak his mind in the videos uploaded on his personal YouTube account. Let’s just say he wasn’t enamored with the latest 2 Series Coupe (G42) when it came out. Involved in the design process of the first-generation X5 (E53) and the original modern MINI, the Casablanca-born automotive designer had his say about BMW’s latest concept – the i Vision Dee.
Unveiled last month at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Dee featured an evolution of the color-changing technology we saw last year at CES where BMW brought the iX Flow. For the electric sedan, the body was divided into no fewer than 240 individually controllable E Ink segments. Stephenson believes it might just be the next step in car customization, but the German luxury brand has refrained from saying if and when the tech will be applied to production cars. For Dee, those panels – which extend onto the wheels – can be configured in one of the 32 colors available.
The 63-year-old designer argues that over the decades, BMW has built a tradition of releasing colorful exteriors with its series of art cars. Should the color-changing body of the Dee ever come to fruition on customer cars, owners would have the possibility to alter the vehicle’s appearance – either the whole body or just parts of it – even after buying the car.
“Personally, I love it. I think that anything that adds the ability to customize your own vehicle is a good thing. It opens up the range of possibilities and makes it much more interesting from an aesthetic point of view.”
Stephenson is also a fan of the customizable head-up display that allows drivers to select the amount of info shown by the HUD. Some of that tech will trickle down to production EVs in 2025 with the release of the first models based on the Neue Klasse architecture, namely a sedan and a crossover in the 3 Series segment.
Source: Frank Stephenson / YouTube
