You would think that a car with a cool tan would provide that extra bit of joie de vivre during the corona pandemic, but few dare to order a new car in a sparkling color. This is apparent from an annual survey by paint manufacturer Axalta.
At the beginning of 2021, Volkswagen’s Senior Color Designer predicted that cars with a striking paint color could very well gain in popularity as a result of the pandemic, among other things. We would become aware of “the grayness around us” by working from home, among other things, but the annual Global Automotive Color Popularity Report from paint supplier Axalta shows that this grayness is only increasing in Europe.
For the third year in a row, gray is again the most common color on a new car in Europe. No less than 27 percent of passenger cars newly delivered in Europe in 2021 were grey, 2 percent more than in the previous year. The entire top three is quite colorless. In second place is white with a share of 23 percent, followed by black lacquers which account for a share of 22 percent. This means that almost three quarters of new cars delivered in Europe were grey, white or black. We come across the first real color in place four. About 11 percent of new cars delivered in Europe in 2021 were blue. 8 percent of European car buyers opted for silver, while 5 percent dared to order a red car. After that, the percentages drop sharply. Brown and beige colored paints accounted for a share of about 2 percent, while green and yellow or gold colored paints were only checked in the configurator in one percent of the cases.
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Worldwide, white was the most popular ‘color’ for a new car. Although that was also the case last year, white lost some of its popularity (-3 percent). Yet roughly 35 percent of all new cars sold worldwide are painted in white. Black follows in second place with a share of 19 percent. Gray follows in third place, but gained 4 percentage points in popularity. In South America, silver was the most popular paint color in 2021. More interesting figures: about half of all cars delivered to China in 2021 were white, while in Russia a whopping 11 percent of new cars were brown.