Each year, designers for BASF’s Coatings division create a new collection of colors to inspire automotive designers around the globe. This year, non-human intelligence was a strong driver for the creation of the ON VOLUDE collection from Automotive Color Trends by BASF for 2023-2024.

When BASF’s designers looked at what their trend signals were telling them, they realized it’s time for a color update, as the classic automobile color wheel has had its day. Non-classic automotive hues emerged, propelling colors through a series of shifts reflecting a positive mood, with a focus on lighter shades and the exploration of new, expressive color spaces.

ON VOLUDE provides exciting colors that also adopt an increasing focus on sustainability and functionality. As customers rely on the BASF collection to design automotive colors for their future models, one will see the new direction on the road or in the driveway in the next three to five model years.

EMEA – Exploring features beyond color position

The palette for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) puts a highlight on bright beige colors. Pastels also play an important role, introducing interesting non-automotive color positions into automotive design.

As seen throughout the ON VOLUDE collection, colors in EMEA explore features far be-yond color position. They add sustainable, recycled raw materials, LiDAR and RADAR compatible concepts, and haptic surfaces.

“Expressive colors reflect our will to communicate and speak up,” said Mark Gutjahr, head of automotive color design for EMEA. “When we bring non-automotive colors into the mix, we broaden that conversation even further into new and exciting color spaces.”

Asia Pacific – Realistic approaches to sustainable concepts

For ON VOLUDE, designers in Asia Pacific (APAC) explored and enriched the important color spaces for whites and grays, while adventurous new color spaces like shimmering green pastel and fluorescent red offer new expressions to meet the growing individuality of car buyers in APAC.

The collection shows realistic approaches to sustainable materials, sustainable processes, and a diversity of sustainable concepts and effects.

“This palette can create amazing color harmonies that are futuristic, modern and playful interactions between color and effect combinations,” said Chiharu Matsuhara, head of automotive color design for APAC. “These sustainable concepts are reimagined in a more realistic way, boosting BASF’s leadership in sustainability.”

Americas – colors evolving in their functionality

The Americas palette seeks optimism and divergence that celebrates possibilities in all modes of art and design. The color spaces are evolving in their functionality while building in excitement.

The collection features softer hues, minimized textures and subtle moves that aspire to-ward future goals near and far. Colors in the Americas contribute to cooling effects in the vehicle with solar reflectance, work with sensor-based mobility concepts, and explore more approaches with responsible raw material sourcing.

“In this year’s collection, red leaning pastels and mid-tones are replaced by restorative yellow and green effects suggesting renewal,” said Liz Hoffman, head of automotive color design for the Americas. “The connection complements both grounded color spaces and otherworldly escapes. It shows evolving mindsets in automotive design.”