White finish more popular than ever since Germany’s reunification

Which color do buyers of new cars in Germany choose? Is there a trend color? Collected data delivers some insights about it.

More than three quarters (75.9%) of new car buyers in Germany choose the colors white, black or gray/silver. As in the previous year and in the same order, these colors also occupy the first three places.

In the first place in the color choice of new cars, uninterrupted since 2015, is gray/silver. And even if the color is less popular than in the previous year (-0.6 percentage points), three out of ten new car buyers still choose a gray/silver car (29.9%).

Black is in second place. Almost every fourth new car buyer opts for this color (24.6%; +0.4 percentage points). White follows in third place with 21.4% (+0.3 percentage points) – so white is more popular than ever since German reunification. White is also the color that has seen the steepest increase in the past 15 years. In 2006 just 1.6% of new car buyers opted for a white vehicle.

Among the chromatic colours, green is becoming more popular again. A renaissance is on the horizon here. 1.7% (+0.5 percentage points) mean the highest value since 2005. Of the chromatic colours, only blue, as in the previous year chosen by slightly more than one in ten people (10.6%), and red are more popular than green at 6.3%, however losing 0.4 percentage points.

Only one in 100 new car buyers chooses Orange (1.1%; -0.1 percentage points). Yellow is chosen even more rarely (1.0%; unchanged), which has clearly lost popularity over the long term. In 2009, 2.2%, twice as many customers opted for yellow.

At the end of the popularity scale: brown with 0.7% (-0.2 percentage points). In 2012, 6.7% of new car buyers opted for a vehicle with a brown paint finish – but since then the color has become less popular every year.

When making a color decision, many new car buyers are probably already thinking of reselling in a few years' time and calculate the best value for a color that is currently very popular, i.e. black, white and gray/silver. The choice of color is thus subject to a self-reinforcing effect. As you can see, there are developments and surprises – so we can look forward to what the next year brings.

The evaluation by the Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) is based on current data from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA). All new car registrations in Germany up to November 2021 are taken into account.