Coatings World - March 2014

Automotive OEM Coatings

Automotive OEM Coatings Manufacturers Issue Color Forecasts

BASF, PPG and Axalta recently published their automotive color forecasts. As has been the case for some time, white continnues to dominate as the top color choice for automotives.

BASF annual automotive color trend re- port, “Making Headway” predicted a movement towards more color shades than in previous years, with BASF presenting 65 new colors to automakers and designers around the world. BASF’s new color offerings demonstrate how new and brighter interpretations of colors with different textures will become increasingly important to designers and consumers as people worldwide strive to highlight individual uniqueness and regain a more “human-friendly” life outside of the digitized world.

North American Color Trends

In North America, cool deep and dark tone colors such as blue and brown have been refreshed from their traditional state by changes in depth and brightness. Special effect technologies, which give colors a three-dimensional quality, and matte finishes, offer a wider range of options. In addition, greens and bright yellowish green hues bring new tools for designers to entice potential car buyers. New areas focusing on texture modification are also gaining interest.

Based on a recent survey conducted by BASF, most North American consumers polled ( 60 percent) currently drive a neutral color car, such as silver, black or white, but when asked what color offerings they preferred from a selection of new colors from BASF’s trend report, nearly half of the respondents ( 49 percent) selected a grouping of brighter jewel-toned shades of reds and blues.

Global Trends

In the Asia Pacific region, BASF’s color trend forecast reflects the region’s strong sense of its growing presence on the global stage – with themes of pride in culture and identity, independent from trends in other countries.

Neutral colors such as black, silver, gray
and white will continue to dominate the Asia-
Pacific market, but as original designs and
personal style becomes more important to
buyers, BASF predicts there will be a gradual
emergence of sophisticated intermediate
colors, such as olive-greens and bluish grays.
In Europe, where people have been im-
pacted by the economic crisis and changes
in energy policy, there is a tendency to move
forward rationally and calmly. This results in a
balance between creative, courageous colors
such as red and green and calmer, neutral col-
ors such as black and gray. Two colors that rep-
resent this shift are Particular Gray, an elegant
black color with a subtle fine metallic look, and
Fiberphyllic, a bold, yellowish-green offering a
more expressive coarse feel.
According to PPG’s report, based on
2013 automotive build data, ranked white
first and silver and black tied for second.

According to PPG’s global data, white ranked first (up 3 percent from last year to 25 percent) and silver and black tied for second ( 18 percent each). These were followed by gray, red, natural hues, blue and green, all of which maintained the same share of popularity as in 2012. In North America, white remains most popular ( 21 percent), followed by black ( 19 percent), gray ( 17 percent), and silver ( 15 percent). These were followed by red, blue, natural hues and green. In South America, however, silver leads in popularity ( 33 percent), followed by white ( 29 percent), black ( 13 percent), gray ( 11 percent), red ( 8 percent), natural ( 3 percent), blue ( 2 percent), and green and other colors ( 1 percent total).

In fact, across North American vehicle
types in 2013, PPG found that:
• Sport models are most likely to feature
shades of red and blue,
• The largest percentage of gold and
beige vehicles is in the minivan segment,
•Luxury vehicles, 57 percent of which
were gray in 2013, are most likely to
feature effect finishes in black metallic
and white pearl, and
• Color varies most across sport utility ve-
hicles (SUVs), with relatively equal dis-
tributions finished in shades of white,
black, blue, red and gray.

Looking ahead, PPG predicts that we may see more blue in 2014 models. PPG’s data has shown increases in the popularity of blue for certain regions and vehicle types, such as an increase in North America this year and more than double the popularity in sport models there between 2011 and 2013.

In response to the continued demand for color innovation in automotive coatings, PPG has introduced more than 60 exterior shades to manufacturers for consideration in styling 2016-2017 model year vehicles. Titled “ Color-ography,” the collection includes five palettes:

• Hi-Breed emphasizes the new design harmony between man and nature with a palette consisting of neutrals, pastels and bright hues such as Lapis, a brilliant gemstone blue that uses ANDARO tint dispersions by PPG.

• Mosaic is based on the wealth of artisan patterns, shapes and prints, as well as their strong colorations, and it includes colors such as Autumn, a vivid metallic orange with colored aluminum flake that evokes an image of fall foliage.

• New Spirit reflects the primitive, natural colors of a desert sunset with shades such as Sunray, an intense yellow tri-coat color with a high-sparkle glass flake.

•Magnifigance combines the words magnificent and elegance, and the palette recaptures elaborate styling details and opulent, regal colors for a post-recession world with colors such as Mystic Magenta, a vibrant purple with a unique hue-shift effect.

• Theorem is a precise and minimal contemporary palette that uses rich brown, red and deep blue as accents for balanced neutrals such as Crisp Grey, a graphite color with a surprise highlight of green metallic.