Argentina. Every year, designers from BASF's Automotive Paints division create a new color palette to inspire automotive designers around the world.
This year, artificial intelligence was a major catalyst for the creation of BASF's "On Volude" collection of Automotive Color Trends for 2023-2024.
When BASF designers deciphered the trend signals, they realized that the time had come to update the colors, as the classic color palette of cars had come to an end. Non-classical automotive shades emerged, propelling colors through a series of changes that reflected a positive mood, focused on lighter tones and the exploration of new and expressive chromatic spaces.
The "On Volude" collection offers exciting colours that also take an increasingly focused approach to sustainability and functionality. As customers refer to the BASF collection to design their future models, new trends will be seen on streets, roads and highways or in front of homes in the next three to five years.
South America – Connection to balance and well-being
The color "Graça Calma", key for South America, is a warm non-metallic solid gray with a strong pastel texture, which conveys the search for well-being and balance with an optimistic and resilient outlook for the future. The non-metallic texture gives it a distinct look, escaping the widespread use of silver and metallics in the region, and the desaturated tone brings a lot of elegance to this color.
"These features, combined with trends in the arts, fashion and decoration, bring a renewal to the color of South America, which follows the achromatic, but with an elegant and unconventional appearance," explains Marcos Fernandes, director of Automotive Paints at BASF for South America, based on the study of Liz Hoffman, responsible for the design of automotive colors for the Americas.
Fabián García, senior manager of BASF's Automotive Paints division, added: "In Argentina, achromatic colors (white, gray and black) are the most predominant in the automotive market, in line with our 2022 Color Report. In the coming years, grey will be trending thanks to the warm non-metallic solid, which will give this colour greater elegance and a distinctive tone."
North America - Colors evolve in functionality
The Americas palette seeks optimism and divergence that celebrate possibilities in all modes of art and design. Color spaces evolve in their functionality while gaining in emotion.
The collection features softer tones, minimized textures, and subtle movements that aspire to near and far future goals. The colors in the Americas contribute to in-vehicle cooling effects with solar reflectance, work with sensor-based mobility concepts, and explore more approaches with responsible sourcing of raw materials.
"In this year's collection, pastel and mid-red tones are replaced by restorative effects in yellow and green that suggest renewal," explains Liz Hoffman, and expands: "The connection complements both grounded color spaces and otherworldly getaways. It demonstrates the evolution of mindset in car design."
