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Are Drivers Choosing Cool-Colored Cars Again? What 2025 Data Shows

Green is gaining in BASF’s 2025 color data, but blue is not rising everywhere—and neutral shades still dominate global car production.
Entry298 Date Time2 min MechanicCarCody Team
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Some car colors are becoming more varied, but the evidence does not show a broad return to cool colors. BASF’s 2025 data, published in 2026, identifies green as the fastest-growing chromatic color while blue slipped by one percentage point. Axalta’s separate 2025 report puts blue at 6% globally and 10% in North America. Meanwhile, white, black, and gray still dominate both suppliers’ global color breakdowns.

What the 2025 reports say about car colors

Two coatings suppliers publish global automotive color reports, but their figures are not identical. BASF’s report describes 2025 vehicle production and paint application; Axalta’s report draws on vehicle-build data from leading production regions and major markets. Both are useful snapshots of color prevalence, not direct surveys asking individual drivers what they prefer.

Color BASF, 2025 global data Axalta, 2025 global report
White 33% 29%
Black 23% 23%
Gray 19% 22%
Silver 8% 7%
Blue 6% 6%
Green 3% 3%
Red 3% 3%

Sources: BASF Coatings’ 2025 report announcement and Axalta’s 2025 Global Automotive Color Popularity Report. The different white and gray shares show why these figures should be attributed to their publishers, not averaged into a single estimate.

In both reports, white, black, and gray together account for most of the global palette. Colorful options remain a minority, even as some hues gain ground.

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Green’s momentum is clearer than blue’s

BASF reports green up one percentage point globally in 2025 and calls it the strongest-growing chromatic color. Gray rose two percentage points, while blue fell one percentage point in BASF’s dataset. Axalta also reports green at 3% globally and blue at 6%, but its figures alone do not establish whether either color rose or fell compared with the prior year.

That makes “cool colors are back” too broad a conclusion. Green’s reported growth is a clearer signal in BASF’s data; blue remains more common than green globally in both reports, but its direction is not consistent evidence of a comeback.

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Where the color mix is changing

The regional picture is not uniform. BASF describes colored paints in the Americas rising by almost two percentage points in 2025, alongside gains in green, beige, brown, and violet; it also reports silver gaining again and white declining there. Axalta puts blue at 10% in North America in its 2025 report. Those are separate publishers and geographic measures, so they should not be combined as if they were one dataset.

In EMEA, BASF says green overtook red, while silver continued to decline. In Asia Pacific, gray strengthened and white declined; green gained among chromatic colors, but the overall palette remained strongly achromatic. A claim about a single worldwide shift therefore misses important regional differences.

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What the trend data can—and cannot—tell you

These reports describe vehicle color popularity through production or build data. They do not establish that individual buyers are changing their tastes, explain why a buyer chose a shade, or prove that a cultural mood caused a shift. BASF and Axalta offer interpretations of design direction, but those explanations are not measured buyer motivations.

Color labels also hide variation. “Blue” can include different hues, metallic effects, and finishes; a report’s broad category cannot tell you how a particular manufacturer’s factory paint will look in person. BASF’s 2025–2026 color forecast introduces Tesseract Blue, a vivid blue with green and violet highlights. That is a design forecast, not a measured market share or evidence that blue is gaining in sales.

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For a vehicle you are considering, compare the exact model-year paint option in person where possible. An online swatch may not reproduce the appearance of a factory finish accurately.

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