Short answer
About four in five new cars built worldwide are white, black, grey or silver: Axalta's 2025 report puts white at 29%, black 23%, grey 22% and silver 7%, and BASF's 2025 report gives a similar 83% neutral total. That proportion has sat between roughly 76% and 84% in every global breakdown published since 2009; what changes is which neutral leads — silver to about 2010, white since 2011, with grey now closing in.
Three paint suppliers publish colour shares: DuPont's Automotive Color Popularity Report, which ran from 1953 and passed to Axalta when DuPont sold its coatings business in 2013; BASF's Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings; and, less regularly, PPG. Axalta tabulates its report from 'automotive build data in major markets', so it counts vehicles as they are made, not as they are sold or registered. BASF calculates passenger-car shares from global production and its knowledge of which paint goes on which model. Neither publishes a full method, sample or error margin, and they draw their regions differently (Axalta's Europe against BASF's EMEA, for example). A two-point gap between the two reports for the same year is therefore not a contradiction; it is two estimates of a quantity nobody measures directly.
Adding white, black, grey and silver together for each global breakdown gives a total between 76% and 84% in every edition we could reach, from DuPont's first worldwide ranking for 2009 to Axalta's and BASF's 2025 reports. Axalta states totals itself in some years — 80% for 2019 and 82% for 2022 — and they sit in the same band. Over this period, then, the car market has not become steadily more neutral; it was already overwhelmingly neutral in 2009 and has stayed so. The long-run rise of the neutral car happened earlier, and the published global figures do not reach back far enough to chart it: DuPont's own releases describe 2009 as its first worldwide ranking, and earlier editions give North American or regional figures only.
The totals in the table are sums Colourwise made from each report's own four figures. They carry the reports' rounding, which is why a total can differ by a point from a figure the report states.
The movement is between neutrals. Silver led the world in DuPont's 2009 and 2010 rankings (25% and 26%) and had led North American segments since 1998; DuPont's 2012 release says silver peaked between 2000 and 2006. White tied silver in 2011 at 22% and has led every global breakdown since, reaching 39% in 2017 according to Axalta. Since then white has drifted down (29% in Axalta's 2025 report) while grey has risen from 13% in Axalta's 2019 figures to 22–23% in 2024–25, overtaking black in Axalta's 2023 report and silver long before. Silver itself has shrunk to single figures in both reports. The chromatic colours that remain — blue at 5–9%, red at 3–8% — are the same two that led the non-neutral field in 2009.
They describe production mix, weighted by volume, so a region that builds a lot of cars dominates the global figure: when China's preferences move, the world figure moves. They say nothing about the colour of the cars already on the road, which lags new-car shares by the length of a fleet's life, and nothing about what buyers would choose if every colour were offered on every model — manufacturers decide which colours to offer, and fleets and rental companies buy in bulk. Figures below about 1% are often printed as '<1%' and are left out of our dataset. Treat any single year's movement of one or two points as noise until the next edition confirms it.
| Year | Report | White | Black | Grey | Silver | Blue | Red | Neutral total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | DuPont 2009 report | 16 | 23 | 13 | 25 | 9 | 8 | 77 |
| 2010 | DuPont 2010 report | 16 | 24 | 16 | 26 | 5 | 6 | 82 |
| 2011 | DuPont 2011 report | 22 | 20 | 13 | 22 | 6 | 7 | 77 |
| 2012 | DuPont 2012 report | 23 | 21 | 14 | 18 | 6 | 8 | 76 |
| 2019 | Axalta 2019 report | 38 | 19 | 13 | 10 | – | – | 80 (published) |
| 2019 | BASF 2019 report | 39 | 16 | 13 | 10 | 9 | 7 | 78 |
| 2021 | Axalta 2021 report | 35 | 19 | 19 | – | – | – | – |
| 2021 | BASF 2021 report | 37 | 17 | 15 | 8 | 9 | 6 | 77 |
| 2022 | Axalta 2022 report | 34 | 21 | 19 | – | 8 | 5 | 82 (published) |
| 2022 | BASF 2022 report | 39 | 18 | 16 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 81 |
| 2023 | Axalta 2023 report | 31 | 18 | 22 | 10 | 7 | 4 | 81 |
| 2024 | Axalta 2024 report | 31 | 21 | 23 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 84 |
| 2024 | BASF 2024 report | 34 | 22 | 17 | 8 | 7 | 4 | 81 |
| 2025 | Axalta 2025 report | 29 | 23 | 22 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 81 |
| 2025 | BASF 2025 report | 33 | 23 | 19 | 8 | 6 | 3 | 83 |
Why: One quotes Axalta, the other BASF (or a regional figure), and the reports count different populations with different regions.
Fix: Check which report and which geography each figure comes from before comparing; compare within one reporter's series.
Why: Shares are rounded to whole percentages and the method is unpublished.
Fix: Wait for a second edition moving the same way, or look for the same move in the other reporter's data.
Each statement is labelled by kind — established fact, a standard’s requirement, observed market data, a convention, or Colourwise’s own interpretation or analysis — with the strength of the evidence behind it.
Observed market dataStrong evidence· Global· 2025
Axalta's 2025 report gives global shares of white 29%, black 23%, grey 22% and silver 7%, based on its analysis of 2025 automotive build data.
Measured: Vehicles built in 2025 in the markets Axalta tracks.
Caveat: Method, sample size and error margin are not published; shares are rounded to whole percentages.
Source: 2025 Global Automotive Color Popularity Report (73rd report)
Observed market dataStrong evidence· Global· 2025
BASF's 2025 report gives global passenger-car shares of white 33%, black 23%, grey 19% and silver 8%.
Measured: Passenger cars produced in 2025, per BASF's calculation from production and paint-application data.
Caveat: BASF's regions and method differ from Axalta's, so the two reports are not one series.
Colourwise analysisStrong evidence
In every global breakdown from DuPont, Axalta and BASF that Colourwise could reach for 2009–2025, white, black, grey and silver together make up between 76% and 84% of new cars.
Based on: Sum of each report's published white, black, grey and silver shares, or the report's own stated total where it gives one; see the table on this page.
Caveat: Several years (2013–2018, 2020) have no reachable global table, so the range describes the years available, not every year.
Source: Silver Gleams in First-Ever DuPont Global Color Rankings for 2009; DuPont Global Automotive Color Popularity Report Uncovers Insights from 11 Key Automotive Regions (59th report); Global Automotive 2023 Color Popularity Report (71st report); BASF Color Report 2019 for Automotive OEM Coatings (press kit); BASF Color Report 2025 for Automotive OEM Coatings
FactModerate evidence
DuPont described its 2009 report as the first worldwide ranking of vehicle colour popularity; earlier editions reported regions separately.
Source: Silver Gleams in First-Ever DuPont Global Color Rankings for 2009
Observed market dataStrong evidence· Global· 2011–2023
Axalta reports that white has been the most popular car colour worldwide since 2011 and that its share peaked at 39% in 2017.
Measured: Vehicles built in the markets Axalta tracks.
Caveat: The 2017 figure is restated in a later release; the 2017 report itself was not reachable.
Source: Axalta Extends Automotive Color Leadership with the 69th Global Automotive Color Popularity Report; Global Automotive 2023 Color Popularity Report (71st report)
Reviewed 29 September 2026. Colourwise summarises its sources in its own words and does not reproduce standards text or proprietary colour data. Spotted an error? Tell us.