Once again, achromatic colors (white, black, gray and silver) dominated the global automotive market in 2022. However, as BASF designers discovered in the Automotive Coating Colors Report (Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings in englishis), the automotive color spectrum is expanding, allowing colors like yellow, orange, green and purple to gain market share.
Nevertheless, white continues to be the most popular color around the world for its classic and timeless beautyand its high resale value.
When consumers do not choose achromatic colors, they tend to favor blue or red. Although these two colors are still very popular, other colors such as yellow, orange, green, and purple are gaining market share in most regions of the world.. This shows that car manufacturers are embracing a wider and more diverse range of colors than ever before.
The data in the report also shows that automakers produced more vehicles as they recovered from the effects of the global pandemic and regional supply chain issues.
This annual report of BASF is a data analysis division Coatings (Paintings) based on global automotive production and non-commercial vehicle paint application in 2022.
South America: The lightest region, as white and silver dominate the market
Chery Tiggo 8 Pro PHEV, white.
Historically, car buyers from South America have chosen more traditional and less flashy colors. As in other regions, white is by far the favourite, with gray beating black for achromatic colors.
Regarding the chromatic colors, red and blue remained stable, while coffee gained some market share. Those colors were mainly chosen for small vehicles. Larger vehicles and SUVs registered a higher proportion of achromatic colors, including various new effects.
EMEA: More colourful, although the two most predominant colors (black and white) also increased
Blue for the new Nissan Qashqai.
Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) saw increases in its two most popular colors: black and white, and market share losses for gray and silver. At the same time, the region became much more colourful.
Blue continues to lead the chromatic colors in EMEA, but both blue and red have lost market share. Orange started to appear in car buyers’ preferences, with yellow, brown and green gaining a few percentage points.
North America: More chromatic colors appear, such as violet
Thundernight Metallic, the color of this BMW 2 Series.
North American car buyers have fewer choices chromatic colors, but that doesn’t mean they choose fewer chromatic vehicles. Blue and red still predominate, but the region is more colorful than before, as green, yellow, purple and beige appear more frequently.
Blue is still on top, and the gap between blue and red is widening as blue maintains its dominance. Achromatic colors such as black, gray and silver lost market share, especially on larger vehicles. This allowed earth tones such as beige, brown, green to increase, and purple will gain share as the tastes of car buyers change.
Asia-Pacific: Rising gray tones boosted the ratio of achromatic colors
Impeccable gray for the Audi RS e-tron GT.
as the designers of BASF seen in other regions of the world, white was also the most popular color in Asia-Pacific. The real focus this year is an increase in gray toneswhich suggests a new era in the automotive industry and the changing habits of car buyers.
While the total numbers are not huge, brown, green and purple they are consistent in their popularity. It will be a long time before they challenge white as the most popular, but for now, they contribute to the tremendous diversity of colors in Asia-Pacific. This is mainly true of small and eco-friendly vehicles, which are sold in a wider range of colours.
Gray gained about six percentage points in popularity, taking market share from blue, red, gold and brown.
