Car colors in Germany: grey/silver continues to be the undisputed leader

Which color do car buyers in Germany choose? Is there a trend color? "Same procedure as last year" is what you might think when you first look at the data, but a second look shows that there is definitely some change in the color preferences of drivers.

The evaluation by the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) is based on current data from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA). All new passenger car registrations in Germany from January to November 2022 are taken into account. Comparisons with the previous year refer to the corresponding comparison period, i.e. January to November 2021.

Continuing also in 2022, more than three quarters (77.3%) of buyers in Germany still opt for the colors grey/silver, black or white. As in the previous year and in the same order, these colors make up the first three in the ranking. The color trio was even able to increase its share further: in 2021, 75.9% of new car buyers in Germany had opted for one of these three colors.

Grey/silver still remains the most popular car color: almost every third buyer opts for this (30.8%). This means that grey/silver has been in first place since 2015. And there is no sign of a trend reversal: compared to the same period last year, grey/silver was even able to increase its share by 0.9 percentage points.

Black is in second place, which more than every fourth opted for (26.3%). Compared to the same period of the previous year, black increased its share the most with an increase of 1.7 percentage points.
Of the three most popular colors, only white in third place suffered a drop in popularity: its share fell by 1.2 percentage points to 20.2%. But white in particular shows how the popularity of car colors can change over the years: in 2006, just 1.6% of buyers opted for a white car.

Green consolidates rank 3 among chromatic colors
When it comes to chromatic colors, the trend towards green continues, which became apparent last year. As in the previous year, green took third place among the chromatic colors. Although green only accounts for 2.2% of new registrations (a plus of 0.5 percentage points), a look at the absolute numbers shows an increase of 25.7% – the highest of all passenger car colors.

Blue continues to be the most popular chromatic color. At 9.9%, almost every tenth driver chooses blue. That is 0.6 percentage points less than in the previous year. Red comes second among the chromatic colors with 5.8%, losing 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous year.

Of some scarcity value are orange at 1.1%; no change compared to the previous year, yellow (0.9%, down 0.1 percentage points) and brown (0.7%; no change compared to the previous year), which around 7% still chose ten years ago, in 2012. Just one in 1,000 drivers chose the color lilac/violet for their car (0.1%). In 2012, the proportion was still 0.6%, but has not increased since then.

When making their color decision, many car buyers are probably already thinking about resale in a few years and calculate the best value for a color that is currently very popular, i.e. black, white and grey/silver. The choice of color is therefore subject to a self-reinforcing effect. As you can see every year, there are still developments and surprises. So we can look forward to what next year will bring.