Over three-quarters of all vehicles sold in North America are achromatic. What happened to color?
Nearly 30 years ago, green was the most popular car color in North America. Actually, in 1996, greens were so hot that dark green was the most popular car color in North America; lighter greens were counted separately. In 2023, though, only 1% of new cars sold here were some shade of green.
According to BASF, a company that manufactures paint for the automotive industry, 80% of new cars sold in North America in 2023 were achromatic — the term designers use for what most of us know as grayscale.
Achromatic paints are white, black, silvers, and grays. BASF notes that, globally, black is gaining on white, but white still holds a substantial lead. And in North America, consumers seem to favor lighter shades of gray to dark ones. The breakdown for this market in 2023 is as follows:
- White: 34%
- Black: 22%
- Silver: 14%
- Gray: 10%
- Blue: 9%
- Red: 8%
- Green: 1%
- Violet: 1%
- Beige: 1%
Note that yellow, orange, and brown don’t even round up to a single percentage. The dominance of achromatic paint is nothing new. Even 15 years ago, the grayscale quartet accounted for nearly two-thirds of North America’s car palette.
But back in the good ol’ days of 1970, Mopars were available in 30 different colors, including such famous hues as Plum Crazy, Go Mango, Lemon Twist, and Lime Light. What happened to our rainbow fleet?
Outside Influences
Americans’ collective color preferences are the result of an enormous number of influences. Among the broadest is the overall economic state of the region. For instance, consider the automotive paint trends before and during the Great Depression. The primitive paints available at the dawn of the automobile meant color was expensive and required continual maintenance.
Ford came up with dark asphalt-based enamels, which lasted longer than the bright paint on coach-built models (and which took less time to apply and dry). During the 1920s, new postwar technologies were driving a wild color craze again, but when the Depression hit, duller hues made an immediate comeback. Some industry observers have noted similar calming effects during subsequent periods of economic slowdown.
It’s not just economic concerns that impact color choice, either. If a sufficiently large share of the population fixates on something, it can manifest in OEM paint booths. Consumer electronic devices often get credited with helping propel white to its current 50% lead over black. Design managers from BMW and Ford have gone on record saying Apple made white cool. Many designers believe the next such wave will be propelled by environmentalism, with muted earth tones such as gray-greens, light blues, and browns growing in popularity in coming years.
Market Factors
Such forecasting is tricky, though. Trends shift every couple of years. Pantone, a global color consulting service that advises companies across myriad industries, crowns a “color of the year.” In recent years, it has selected a shade of peach, magenta, muted purple, a combo of pale yellow and gray (stop encouraging them, Pantone), and blue.
Automakers, however, often begin zeroing in on vehicles’ color palettes years before the shades appear in your local showroom. Even in a stable economy (and society), bold hues are a risk. But as Misty Yeomans, color styling manager at paint supplier PPG, notes, the current auto market is far from stable. “The automotive industry has faced a number of challenges in recent years,” she says, “from supply-chain issues during the pandemic, geopolitical concerns, labor disputes, and so on.” Sticking with consistently popular shades provides car companies some shelter from the storm, as consumer tastes tend to get more conservative during recessions.
Consumer Input
We can’t just blame Big Business and society as a whole for the achromatic-washing of the auto industry. Consumers — and the way we acquire our vehicles — deserve our share of the blame.
As Yeomans observes, it is ultimately the manufacturer and the dealer deciding what colors will be available. Those two groups are still waiting on a new normal after the tumult of the last few years, but prior to COVID-19, between one-quarter and one-third of new-car acquisitions were leases. In luxury segments, that figure was more than half. Leased cars typically come out of dealer inventory, motivating dealers to stock common colors due to their broad appeal.
Of course, one-third of sales volume being leased means two-thirds are purchased, but there the dealers’ decision is even easier. Only one in five new-vehicle purchases is special ordered, leaving four of five buyers picking from dealer inventory. So dealers are more likely to stock vehicles they know will sell — and with take rates for adventurous colors being low, it’s in a dealer’s best interest to order assorted trim levels, options lists, and drivetrain configurations in a small number of popular colors.
Achromatic colors are not without their benefits to the customer. Silvers and grays tend to hide dirt, as does white. Imperfections like swirl marks and scratches are less visible on white, keeping cars looking newer longer. And then there’s the fact that many manufacturers today offer many of their chromatic paints only as added-cost options, pushing buyers on a tight budget toward the most common non-colors.
The Future Is Not Black and White (Entirely)
While the dominance of grayscale cars is firmly established, colorful cars will remain (an albeit small) part of the mix for the foreseeable future. Liz Hoffmann, head of automotive color design for the Americas at BASF, expects to see “red-leaning pastels and mid-tones are replaced by restorative yellow and green effects suggesting renewal” in the coming years.
Yeomans notes, “We’re still seeing interest [in] color spaces that, perhaps, have been a challenge to reach in our industry in the past — brighter oranges and pinks, pastel turquoise, and mint tones among them.” Suppliers are careful not to disclose anything relating to specific upcoming vehicle projects, but muted versions of those shades seem like natural fits for electric vehicles. And PPG expects two-tone finishes to continue to grow in popularity, which at the very least represents twice as many opportunities for one of the colors on a vehicle to be something other than grayscale.
Individual buyers have a degree of power over this trend too. While popular shades tend to sell more quickly on the used market, more expressive colors typically command a premium when the right buyer comes along. So consider that daring hue an investment.
