Look Forward To These New Car Colors In 2024

BASF, the multinational chemical conglomerate, has released its 2023-2024 automotive color trends collection to inspire automakers worldwide to explore new color options.

Called "On Volude," the collection takes inspiration from artificial intelligence and the desire to eschew classic automobile hues in favor of lighter shades that reflect expressive and positive moods. Broken up into three areas of the world, just like in the past, the company hopes that we'll see some of these colors on vehicles in the next three to five years.

We'll focus on America first, as it's the largest car market BASF focused on. The North American region features softer hues of yellow and green, which BASF says has a restorative effect. The company says the colors contribute to a cooling effect in the vehicle with an expansion into grounded color spaces and "otherworldly escapes."

The hues highlighted really are gorgeous and are meant to meet the functional requirements automakers demand of their paint while being visually striking and exciting. We'll never be upset about automakers taking chances with new colors, even if they take a rather hilarious approach to the matter like Fiat has.

For Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), the company wanted to highlight bright beige colors and pastels that one wouldn't normally see in the automotive world.

Moving beyond flat panel surfaces, another focus of the colors is sustainable materials, LiDAR and RADAR and integration, and haptic surfaces. As we transition into the new EV landscape, different palettes will become available with more flexibility, and the company wants to explore that.

The next area is the Asia Pacific, and the company went beyond just finding more unique shades of whites and grays. Beautiful shades of green pastel and fluorescent red aim to grow the individuality of customers in the region. Again, sustainable materials and processes are a focus, with the goal of allowing automakers to explore new possibilities in design.

What we want to see is more chances taken, because if they don't work out you'll always have the grays and whites of the world to fall back on.

Many vehicles explored exciting colors this year, like the Mint Green BMW M4 and the Zesty Yellow Mini Cooper Convertible, but interesting hues are still too far and few between, even if color heavyweights like Porsche and Jeep are bringing up the average.

Perhaps BASF's new collection is just what the industry needs to inspire more interesting colors in vehicles, and hopefully, it will lead to less grayscale at the configurator in the future.