On the bright side, I learned how much microscopic flakes contribute to paint detail. Overall, it was an absolute snark fest, a large amount of effort for a little opinion.
Clearly designers have gotten influenced by the clay modeling process used to prototype cars and now expect the real cars to look similar. (half-kidding)
Flat paint became popular in house interiors first. Then matte finish became a trend in autos but it's insanely difficult to keep the dust off; especially the textured variety that is popular. I think the manufacturer's are trying to find a happy medium between the trend and the realistic maintenance.
I'm in agreement. I'm amazed that they could come up with an entire blog posts worth of words depicting naught more than curmudgeonlyness towards a new trend. I thought maybe there was a really interesting reason behind the shift when they tapped in the Porsche designer, but nope - just whining about millienial trends.
I used to think that all Toyota drivers were just boring, choosing the same colours for their cars. As it turns out, only the boring colours are available for no additional charge.
That kind of effect can amplify the apparent popularity of various things. 40% want the boring colors but the other 60% are very-divided over what they'd like, so it ends up looking like 90% want the boring colors because most people won't pay (much) extra to get the color they want, and manufacturers favor not-offensive over actually-desired in a lot of cases.
I've never had an issue negotiating a decent price on a customized order over a car already on the lot. Just have had to wait a few months usually for it to come in.
As for "any color you want", Audi has advertised for quite a few years that for $2500 (or so, it may be more now) you can have any color under the sun. But, when I actually tried this, I was told, "We don't know you, your dealer is too small, we wouldn't paint it that color, and we're booked up for a solid two years anyway". So, while they advertise it for anybody, they seemingly were only doing it for VIPs.
I'm a little confused by this comment. You start by saying you've "never had an issue" customizing a vehicle order, but then a few sentences later directly give an example where you had an issue getting a car customized.
Which is it? Did you once try to get a car customized only to be told they're booked up for a solid two years, or have you never had an issue and only had to wait a few months every time you've tried to get a car?
Personally, I absolutely have had issues trying to custom order a car. The first time I tried to buy a new car I assumed I could easily go and order exactly the options and colors I wanted, only to be turned away from dealership to dealership for actually placing an order. Every dealer only wanted to sell the cars on their lots or search their networks to find similar enough cars to sell me instead of placing an order. The second time buying a new car dealers would agree to take my order, but wouldn't commit to having any kind of delivery even within a year.
Typically you can choose from a few colors in whatever the manufacturer considers a "standard" finish. Additional colors — plus the glossier or more pearlescent finish options — will be artificially locked in to a higher trim package. So, you'd end up spending (e.g.) $5500 to go from "red" to "glossy red", and you'd end up with a bunch of other options you may not have wanted. It's a great, consumer-friendly approach to customization /s.
It's pretty much about a dozen shades of gray, and 2 or 3 selections of black/white these days after car shopping. This may be slight hyperbole.
If you want to paint a new car something other than white/grey/black it seems these days you are both paying substantially more from the factory, as well as dealing with unknown delivery times for your "custom" color car.
Most folks seem to shrug and pick one of the many shades of grey.
I've been commenting on this trend for a couple years now. My pet theory was society is simply moving towards a more dire mood the past 5-10 years.
That makes sense to me. Part of the reason the initial popularity of enthusiasts painting their own cars in a flat color was just that it was unusual. The novelty is gone once manufacturers start shipping them that way.
In my experience, car dealers are more likely to inventory "boring" neutral colors that most people will tolerate to get something on the lot rather than more polarizing bright colors.
I recently bought a Porsche Macan in the "Chalk" color they mention in the article, because I liked it (obviously). It seems that about half the people who comment on it hate it, and the other half love it <shrug>.
Exactly this. I don't have many opinions or preferences on car finishes, but the now-standard retina-searingly-reflective finishes ought to be illegal for safety reasons. If TFA is complaining about a move away from that, then I hate TFA.
[EDIT] I'm not 100% sure what TFA is complaining about because I'm pretty sure I haven't seen this in the wild yet. Must be a regional trend. Coasts usually get stuff way sooner than us so maybe I'll know what it's about in a couple years.
In the Dallas area, not quite a coast, this trend has been bugging me for roughly a year, and the 2023 models of many cars seem to feature non-metallic colors even more than 2022 did.
Multiple lights that can all be turned off - except for the so called "daytime driving light", but that's also a double edged sword: many drivers seem to think that if they have these they can get away with leaving the "real" headlights off for longer, but forget that there is no daytime light at the rear of the car. So yeah, a murky-matte-gray car in murky gray weather at twilight is the worst situation for visibility I can think of too...
Reflectors glow only when somebody else lights them up. Background-colored cars makes it a lot easier for two unlit fools to connect. Head on.
Black suffers from this somewhat, but less since backgrounds on the road are rarely black until the hour when headlights become essential. Muted grays are a handicap all day long in any form of suboptimal weather.
I only really see this issue on old vehicles. Most vehicles have lights set to automatically turned on when it gets dark. I very rarely see a new vehicle that doesn't have this enabled and/or daytime running lights. Even newer Honda civics have a feature to automatically turn on high beams when no oncoming traffic at night
That's not accurate, so many designs of cars are hard to see the side profile of even with lights. Even if it were, it's not bourne out in studies of paint colour and crash risk. Grey/silver represents an increased crash risk, especially at night.
Something I think hinders visibility is also that cars are often amongst dozens of other lights, especially at intersections where it matters most.
Actually the Australian study you quoted earlier showed that the difference in crash risk was largest during daylight hours, as in Australia many people drive with their lights off during daylight.
But yes, I suspect if you were to redo that study in a country where people always have the lights on (perhaps due to local law if nothing else), you'd see the biggest difference in poor lightning conditions.
Daytime too curiously enough. Though I suspect some of it may be the proliferation of cheap LED replacement “bulbs” being put into housing meant for halogen bulbs and never being aligned/aimed to mimic the factory cutoff.
In most the the aftermarket LED bulbs that I’ve seen, the location of the diode(s) causes light to emit from different point(s) that it would from a halogen bulb, thus reflecting differently than intended.
> “To put it simply, yes. LEDs can be used in reflector headlights BUT (and it’s a big but) if you’re upgrading the bulb, you also need to upgrade the reflector bowl. Failure to do so can blind or dazzle other people. You see, no two reflectors are the same. Each reflector headlight design is meticulously crafted based on the precise specifications of the halogen bulb it intends to use. This ensures there’s a good throw and spread of light.
Replacing a halogen bulb with an LED, therefore, throws the reflector off balance. Even minute changes will alter where the light hits the reflector and gets projected out to. Essentially, the light will end up in places it was not intended to. This is exacerbated by the fact that LEDs are a directional light source, whereas halogens are omnidirectional. Unlike halogens, an LED will not illuminate the reflector surface evenly. This has two consequences:
Firstly, by shining light only at the reflector’s sides, there’s likely to be blank, hollow, or hot spots in the light beam.
Secondly, by failing to illuminate the upper portion of the reflector, the headlight will have reduced distance projection. Instead, the light will scatter above the cut-off point and blind other drivers.“
Well I think the author makes a good point - the flat finish looks a lot better with more interesting colors (and more gloss). The abundance of de-saturated blues and green will age like milk.
The only true matte finish on a normal car that I know of is the Hyundai ionic 5. The wet in wet putty is the glossy coating. On matte paint, there is no gloss. It’s also a pain to maintain
https://manuals.plus/hyundai/ioniq-5-matte-finish-paint-manu...
Most of the luxury brands offer true matte paint finishes. For example, if you want matte paint ("Frozen" as they call it) on a BMW, you can order through this program:
Like you said, these true matte paints don't have a clear coat, so they are a pain to own.
On the other hand, these "Putty" finishes that the blog is talking about are likely an attempt by the paint companies to offer a matte-like look that is still easy to maintain, and that's why they do employ a clear coat. The PPG paints use a special matte clear coat, and axalta paints use a matte additive to the base color and a matte clear coat product. Those are the two main automotive paint suppliers, but I expect the other suppliers have a similar approach.
I wish they could tune down those bight LED back lights (and brakes and turn signals) I hate driving at night because of this.
Audi is particularly blameable for this.
I think they should be regulated the same way as low/high front beams.
The handful selection of home goods (and one house) picked in attempts to illustrate the point that it's affecting more than just cars and is some generational effect is hilarious.
Sorry to whoever wrote this blog, but vases will always come in a sickening plethora of colors and patterns.
Grays have been a significant trend for years now, in everything from houses to furnishings to cars.
In my city in the Southeastern US (and others from what I see on social media), the dominant colors for high end house remodels are dark gray or stark white. So it's not infrequent to see a charcoal gray house with a couple of putty gray cars parked out front.
From the standpoint of reducing solar heat gain and fuel/utility usage, it's a terrible trend.
I’m guilty of this trend. Painted our house almost black last spring. Brutal summer. No impact to interior or HVAC use/cost as far as I can tell. I’m in Texas fwiw.
Interesting! Sounds like you have a well insulated structure. One other aspect, however, is the effect on the outdoor spaces on the sunny side of the house. You might find that they are warmer due to the increased radiant heat absorbtion and emission of the dark surfaces.
I’d actually be surprised if it was insulated much at all by modern standards. It’s a mid century construction. My guess is the air gap between the insulation/siding and the masonry is carrying the heat up and out of the attic/roof.
And yes the radiation on the exterior is quite noticeable. It’s being felt by a few bushes.
The Nardo grey on Audis is what I immediately thought of, I definitely think that's what started the trend. The first car where I noticed this effect was the Lamborghini Reventon, which Wikipedia describes as "mid opaque grey without the usual shine". That was apperantly inspired by fighter jets.
I like it, although like everything it gets boring when it takes over and dominate. A bigger problem is the lack of color, every new car is some variant of grey.
I'm not a car guy so am pretty oblivious to the trends, but I actually stopped and took a photo of an Audi with this a couple of months ago, because it looked fantastic IRL. Not sure how much it comes across in the photo https://i.imgur.com/9sQQwT2.jpg , it looked more matte in the flesh.
That's precisely the "wet putty" effect being described. It's quite striking. Often your first way of describing it is "matte" but it's clearly glossy.
The trend of gray tones in consumer goods brings to mind the Puritan rule of wearing only "sadd colors." Perhaps we are experiencing a new wave of Puritan chic?
From the book Albion's Seed: "The taste of New England ran not to black or gray, but to “sadd colors” as they were called in the seventeenth century. A list of these “sadd colors” in 1638 included “liver color, de Boys, tawney, russet, purple, French green, ginger lyne, deer colour, orange.” Other sad colors were called “gridolin” from the French gris de lin (“flax blossom”). Still others were called puce, folding color, Kendall green, Lincoln green, barry, milly and tuly."
I wasn't aware this was a trend; I thought it was just practical. a gray coffee machine may not make for a striking kitchen centerpiece, but it doesn't clash with anything either. if you're KitchenAid, by all means, go and make 12 different colors for a stand mixer. but if you only want to make one color, it might as well be gray.
I always get my cars in gray for a similar reason. I like cars, but I don't want mine to stand out on the road. don't need the extra attention from cops, thieves, etc. plus, a gray car in the right shade looks clean for a long time between washes.
The trend the article discusses is using colors that are tones, meaning a hue mixed with gray. So it's not just that a lot of things are gray, it's that even the things that are colored have a gray-ish cast.
I admit I didn't read past all the pictures of cars in TFA. I see what you mean with kitchen items now. weird trend, but I think my original point still holds? desaturated versions of otherwise incompatible colors clash less, to my eyes at least
Ok, I'll bite. I used to live in Dallas. It's not really a secret that literally everyone speeds all the time on the highway. If you commute daily, it's not uncommon that you'll probably be going 10-15mph over the speed limit at some point. Of course you don't have to speed, but sometimes it's easier to stay in the flow of traffic and drive a little faster.
Most of the time, the cops are too busy with other stuff to sit by the road writing tickets for speeding. This is probably why there are so many speeders. It's barely enforced. However, on the 3 days a year where the department has had a slow morning, I wouldn't mind having a less conspicuous car. For the cop, it's much easier to focus on the bright neon green car and pull them over once they turn on lights and sirens and start following them.
Nobody wants attention from the cops, but it's also important to acknowledge the possibility. If you drive the speed limit perfectly, by all means, get a bright colored car. For most people, a little bit of speeding is a daily habit and statistically, having a car that blends in will lead to fewer tickets on average.
In my country everyone is speeding as well, but speed limits are enforced primarily by the radar-cameras, not cops. So you just have to know location of those cameras (thanks, Waze) and slow down there.
I assumed that your concern was cops giving trouble just because they can, not for actual violations.
This is true where I live currently (Netherlands). Luckily, there are no silly cameras on my commute to and from work. :)
In America, cops generally will leave you alone unless you're actively breaking the law right in front of them. Most departments are understaffed already, especially in big cities. In Dallas, there were a couple of suburbs that were notorious for writing traffic tickets and in those areas, people would slow down. But those areas were wealthy and have low crime rates so the local police don't have much else to do.
There was a time when the point of the neutrals trend in decor was supposed to be that everyday things could fade modestly into the background to let the colors of clothing, food, art, etc. stand out more. But I don't think that's the way the trend has gone. Kim Kardashian has a completely beige house, in which she and her children have been photographed wearing beige clothing, etc. It seems very exhausting. And the flip side is that youth culture seems to remain interested in bright colors, at least for now.
The Puritan and the modern intellect-centered (technical, ideological, on social media a lot...) type person have something in common. Both put "the life of the mind" first and the real world second.
Maybe they both seek to surround themselves with drab, undistracting stuff so they can focus better on their mental life.
>The Puritan and the modern intellect-centered (technical, ideological, on social media a lot...) type person have something in common
As someone who is more read I care to be about the culture of early new england I feel very comfortable (and by comfortable, I mean I hate it and I think that it is a terrible trend) saying that the current crop of people who fancy themselves intellectuals and historical puritans have approximately the same politics. They have some radically different beliefs about acceptable behavior but the overarching fundamentals about right vs wrong and community, family and self line up very well. This is not a compliment.
> The result is faintly but palpably uncanny, almost as though a computer-rendered object has somehow infiltrated the real world, beholden to a slightly different set of physics…
The impression these cars make on me is slightly less alien: they remind me of the drab utility vehicles I saw in my youth in Romania, painted with whatever paint was available (definitely no sparkle included).
It reminds me of how movies don’t try new things and keep playing it safe with sequels. Everyone is afraid of trying something new like a bright red car and failing. I have my doubts how good their data is though. It could just be groupthink and hivemind everywhere thinking that.
This is off topic but I’ve wondered why cat panels are designed in a way that makes them so difficult to fix yourself. It would be nice if I could patch em up or change the color myself, like I can with my walls at home, without making my machine stand out.
This is a deep topic. But the short version is that let's take a paint called PR4 from the factory. If they were spraying this color in the morning in the winter, and or afternoon in the summer, even at the factory it won't perfectly match. Now give the recipe of PR4 to a body shop and it doesn't matter, they'll need to match it anyhow.
As to why panels aren't replaceable. It's cost and weight. If your panel just unbolts, you have the weight of bolts and fasteners, durability of it becoming loose, assembly time at the factory, etc. For modern vehicles, a lot of the class-A body panels you see are structural components. Without these, you would need a stiffer unibody or frame. Cost and weight top to bottom.
Everyone has tried it here and there. Honda elements have replaceable fenders iirc, but it doesn’t change the math.
You can be lighter and cheaper if you don’t plan on swapping panels out.
Body shops are pretty good at what they do.
Fancier cars like McLaren go the entire opposite direction. Some panels have no way of coming out at all they are part of the carbon tub, other panels must be cut out with a knife because they don’t bolt on anywhere.
"Wet-putty cars is part of a broader mainstreamification of gray-shaded consumer-good colors heavily targeted at younger Gen-X-ers and Millennials." Basically, it's a design trend from architecture and consumer products that bled into car colors, according to the article.
I've been wondering about this for years. At first, I thought it might have something to do with new paint manufacturing techniques or environmental concerns with traditional paint jobs. But probably just a design trend.
Does anybody know, what the flakes, that the article mentions, is made of? It made me wonder, because they also state, that the colour is used everywhere, not just cars. Also made me wonder, what the real reason might be? Cost? Availability? Environmental protection legislation?
It's been a long time since I did automotive body work. But the fillers and flake in most modern paints are not metal at all. They're glass, ceramics and polymers.
There was a steel coated flake I saw at an auto show that used magnets in the process to put effects in before drying.
I know I saw a titanium at some point, but I wasn't doing the work. So I don't know much other than "metal flake" is largely an effect and not always ingredient.
Personally, I find these "putty" colors to be very nice looking - particularly the gloss grey. It is the polar opposite of the "look at me" red cars of the past. There is a common idea that red cars get more tickets - not sure if that's true, but I have always chosen silver as it is more nondescript and also you don't notice dirt on it as much.
The nondescriptness of silver cars is a pro and a con - when I first switched to driving one there was an immediate increase in the amount of time it seemed to take for other drivers/pedestrians/etc to notice me, and I've had to adjust my standard of driving defensively to compensate.
Oh, I thought it was just me. I’ve come much closer to getting into accidents with gray cars, because I just didn’t notice them at a glance, or see the movement. Silver seems like a good color if you want to drive a getaway car, and a bad color if you have kids.
It's been studied, there is a crash risk increase for gray cars amongst other colours. I am on my phone and can't find am easy to access source except this:
I wonder if that's also true for scooter and motorcycles. I'm thinking about getting one of those, but ideally in some bright and highly visible color.
I imagine so, but I think you get more mileage from reflective high vis clothing.
Make sure you get to an MSF course, they teach you about lane positioning for visibility and defensive riding techniques. Some assume this means riding like Tom Cruise, but most saftey occurs by never being in an incident at all.
People took that stat to mean that cops can see the red better and so can spot the speeder more easily. I always took it to mean that people who buy red cars like to speed.
There is a story in the UK that red cars get pulled over more often due to police playing 'snooker'. In a game of snooker you have to pot a red ball every other ball... when playing with cars it means a lot more red ones get pulled.
Maybe in Australia it's not. In the US it is a myth.
If you get a quote through the Australian site provided, you will be questioned about the color of your vehicle, and this is how that data was collected. Car insurance quotes in the US do not ask you what color your car is.
The linked article (to the extent that it's credible) suggests that:
1. Having any less-common color raises the price of insurance because, in the event of damage, the car will be more expensive to repaint. "For example, metallic paint can be more expensive than a standard colour and therefore the car may be more expensive to replace."
2. Gray and silver cars are the most likely to get into accidents, not red. (Red is #3.)
3. A price comparison site quoted the highest insurance rates for gray and black cars, not red.
The OP didn't claim that red cars were the most expensive, just that there was a surcharge for red which is true.
I've worked for insurance companies here in Australia and the UK. Not all insurance companies ask about car colour but some do. I assume it would be the same in many other countries.
It's grey primer with clearcoat over it. How could that be a good thing?
It's also as invisible as possible against the background of an asphalt road. Also a bad thing. Unless headlights come on automatically in fog or twilight, that aesthetic will likely be a deadly one.
Very good point, this removes one layer of paint then. All cars have three (or four) layers of paint. This is two layers only.
The main reason could be to increase the profit for the maker (or reduce the market prize so they could compete). Should be also cheaper to repaint for the owner
Living in the rust belt, I have come to enjoy owning gray (or at least mid-tone) color cars. In the summer, we get dust and dirt which looks bad on light-colored cars and requires frequent washing. In the winter, we get road salt which looks bad on dark-colored cars and requires frequent washing. Neither is near as pronounced on gray, meaning I literally never wash the outside of my car. Rain and snow do it often enough for me.
I'm convinced that's the only reason people buy that ugly champagne color on cars. I hate it, but judging by a friend who never washes her car, it does not show dirt.
Work friend from Britain bought his first car in California with a dark grey paint job so it wouldn't show dirt. And then found out that dirt in California is light tan not iron/coal dust dark.
Had a VW in that color. It's very good at hiding dust, less so with real dirt. For city driving, yeah, it could be left unwashed for many months with no-one the wiser.
> Neutral colors have the added benefit of being more easily resell-able (at a higher price), especially to private parties.
Only for neutral cars. Flashy cars (like the Audis and Porsches described in the article) carry a premium when they're flashy colors. There are even whole events dedicated to unusually-colored Porsches (paint to sample).
Often this is because the paint itself is a more expensive option. In the end, neutral colors sell the fastest and most consistently. Colored cars have a smaller market based on the buyers tastes.
I buy it. There are some colors that just always look good on any car. They are fairly basic, but you can't really go wrong with them. Like black paint on a vehicle, black looks decent to good on just about anything.
black is great on a car, but very hard to keep clean, especially if there's a desire to avoid hairline scratches and swirls. There's also a need to avoid car washes to keep the car scratch free.
Grey/Silver color range is much easier to keep clean, and stays cooler in the sun.
> Grey/Silver color range is much easier to keep clean, and stays cooler in the sun.
That's true, however there's also a surprisingly big drop in reflectance going from white (~85%) to even a light gray (~50%). Now these figures are for "normal" flat paint used for steel construction, the glossy metallic paints used for cars probably have higher reflectances. But still.
That probably depends a lot on where you are. In large parts of the Bay Area expensive cars are ridiculously common and while I haven't gathered any actual data, my impression is that neutral colors are nearly as common for luxury vehicles as they are for normal vehicles. Seriously, a white/black/grey/silver Model S/X, RX/NX, X5/X3, GLC/GLE, Cayenne, etc. is a ubiquitous "soccer mom" vehicle around here. Of course you will also see your brightly colored 911s and similar. Oh, and those new (I think?) mid-engine Corvettes are everywhere.
It's definitely more interesting than the overwhelming majority of silver cars in the past 10 years, although I'd really like it if we had more colors in the roads (and used car lots)
I know there are serious logistical and maybe marketing considerations but I don’t know why Tesla, and perhaps any other brands that are primarily ordered online, couldn’t have a ton more colors available. Even if there’s a significant fee a ton of people would jump in it.
The last time I bought a car it was my Camaro. I wanted orange. They didn’t have orange. They had orange-red along with two other reds. I would have loved a deep forest green, but all they had was a neon green.
I've lived thru Mary Kay pink, 1973 GM green, and merconium yellow. That bright grey is the most unsettling color I've ever seen. It's like what needs to be sewn back in after a blobfish knife fight.
The closest analogue I've personally seen is polish ziltz, pigsfeet in clear gelatin.
Silver has a marginal impact on crash risk, especially at night. It may be marginal, but being in a car accident is not something I want to do for a fourth time (never at fault). You might notice how hard it is to see your hood in bad weather if you have a glossy silver paint.
I tend to pick white now, which is also the best colour for hot climates like mine.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 450 ms ] threadAs for "any color you want", Audi has advertised for quite a few years that for $2500 (or so, it may be more now) you can have any color under the sun. But, when I actually tried this, I was told, "We don't know you, your dealer is too small, we wouldn't paint it that color, and we're booked up for a solid two years anyway". So, while they advertise it for anybody, they seemingly were only doing it for VIPs.
Which is it? Did you once try to get a car customized only to be told they're booked up for a solid two years, or have you never had an issue and only had to wait a few months every time you've tried to get a car?
Personally, I absolutely have had issues trying to custom order a car. The first time I tried to buy a new car I assumed I could easily go and order exactly the options and colors I wanted, only to be turned away from dealership to dealership for actually placing an order. Every dealer only wanted to sell the cars on their lots or search their networks to find similar enough cars to sell me instead of placing an order. The second time buying a new car dealers would agree to take my order, but wouldn't commit to having any kind of delivery even within a year.
If you want to paint a new car something other than white/grey/black it seems these days you are both paying substantially more from the factory, as well as dealing with unknown delivery times for your "custom" color car.
Most folks seem to shrug and pick one of the many shades of grey.
I've been commenting on this trend for a couple years now. My pet theory was society is simply moving towards a more dire mood the past 5-10 years.
But when I first saw it, I kinda liked it.
I mean I hate it, I just hate boring silver more
Down with the flake, in with the putty. Matte finishes are the best thing to happen to cars since the assembly line.
[EDIT] I'm not 100% sure what TFA is complaining about because I'm pretty sure I haven't seen this in the wild yet. Must be a regional trend. Coasts usually get stuff way sooner than us so maybe I'll know what it's about in a couple years.
Black suffers from this somewhat, but less since backgrounds on the road are rarely black until the hour when headlights become essential. Muted grays are a handicap all day long in any form of suboptimal weather.
In my case, I frequently bump the light knob with my knee as I’m entering or exiting.
Something I think hinders visibility is also that cars are often amongst dozens of other lights, especially at intersections where it matters most.
But yes, I suspect if you were to redo that study in a country where people always have the lights on (perhaps due to local law if nothing else), you'd see the biggest difference in poor lightning conditions.
https://ledlightinginfo.com/led-headlights-in-reflector-hous...
> “To put it simply, yes. LEDs can be used in reflector headlights BUT (and it’s a big but) if you’re upgrading the bulb, you also need to upgrade the reflector bowl. Failure to do so can blind or dazzle other people. You see, no two reflectors are the same. Each reflector headlight design is meticulously crafted based on the precise specifications of the halogen bulb it intends to use. This ensures there’s a good throw and spread of light.
Replacing a halogen bulb with an LED, therefore, throws the reflector off balance. Even minute changes will alter where the light hits the reflector and gets projected out to. Essentially, the light will end up in places it was not intended to. This is exacerbated by the fact that LEDs are a directional light source, whereas halogens are omnidirectional. Unlike halogens, an LED will not illuminate the reflector surface evenly. This has two consequences:
Firstly, by shining light only at the reflector’s sides, there’s likely to be blank, hollow, or hot spots in the light beam.
Secondly, by failing to illuminate the upper portion of the reflector, the headlight will have reduced distance projection. Instead, the light will scatter above the cut-off point and blind other drivers.“
There is no angle in which you cannot see the headlights of a vehicle.
If the vehicle is parked, there is no angle you should be using that wouldn't illuminate the vehicle.
driving without your lights on after dark is illegal and black colored vehicles have existed for years without these problems.
https://www.bmwusa.com/innovations/bmw-individual.html
Like you said, these true matte paints don't have a clear coat, so they are a pain to own.
On the other hand, these "Putty" finishes that the blog is talking about are likely an attempt by the paint companies to offer a matte-like look that is still easy to maintain, and that's why they do employ a clear coat. The PPG paints use a special matte clear coat, and axalta paints use a matte additive to the base color and a matte clear coat product. Those are the two main automotive paint suppliers, but I expect the other suppliers have a similar approach.
maybe they should provide you with a 1'x1' square of painted metal to test on, I'm not sure where on a car is hidden and still painted.
I think they should be regulated the same way as low/high front beams.
Either way, I don't think it's anyone's business to tell people what colour they should use for their cars? This blog article seems a bit weird.
Sorry to whoever wrote this blog, but vases will always come in a sickening plethora of colors and patterns.
Browse through this catalog and you’ll see what I mean. https://www.urbanoutfitters.com/home
People calling things trends among [generation here] meanwhile it's always been popular are quite frankly absurd.
Yawn.
In my city in the Southeastern US (and others from what I see on social media), the dominant colors for high end house remodels are dark gray or stark white. So it's not infrequent to see a charcoal gray house with a couple of putty gray cars parked out front.
From the standpoint of reducing solar heat gain and fuel/utility usage, it's a terrible trend.
And yes the radiation on the exterior is quite noticeable. It’s being felt by a few bushes.
I like it, although like everything it gets boring when it takes over and dominate. A bigger problem is the lack of color, every new car is some variant of grey.
From the book Albion's Seed: "The taste of New England ran not to black or gray, but to “sadd colors” as they were called in the seventeenth century. A list of these “sadd colors” in 1638 included “liver color, de Boys, tawney, russet, purple, French green, ginger lyne, deer colour, orange.” Other sad colors were called “gridolin” from the French gris de lin (“flax blossom”). Still others were called puce, folding color, Kendall green, Lincoln green, barry, milly and tuly."
https://www.tiktok.com/@sadbeige
https://www.instagram.com/officialsadbeige/
I always get my cars in gray for a similar reason. I like cars, but I don't want mine to stand out on the road. don't need the extra attention from cops, thieves, etc. plus, a gray car in the right shade looks clean for a long time between washes.
I do love me some bright Ikea-style colors though, even though they are more difficult to coordinate properly.
Most of the time, the cops are too busy with other stuff to sit by the road writing tickets for speeding. This is probably why there are so many speeders. It's barely enforced. However, on the 3 days a year where the department has had a slow morning, I wouldn't mind having a less conspicuous car. For the cop, it's much easier to focus on the bright neon green car and pull them over once they turn on lights and sirens and start following them.
Nobody wants attention from the cops, but it's also important to acknowledge the possibility. If you drive the speed limit perfectly, by all means, get a bright colored car. For most people, a little bit of speeding is a daily habit and statistically, having a car that blends in will lead to fewer tickets on average.
I assumed that your concern was cops giving trouble just because they can, not for actual violations.
In America, cops generally will leave you alone unless you're actively breaking the law right in front of them. Most departments are understaffed already, especially in big cities. In Dallas, there were a couple of suburbs that were notorious for writing traffic tickets and in those areas, people would slow down. But those areas were wealthy and have low crime rates so the local police don't have much else to do.
Maybe they both seek to surround themselves with drab, undistracting stuff so they can focus better on their mental life.
But I have seen the folks that climb out of clay-color Dodge Challengers. They do not convince me that such focus drives their decision-making.
It could be that after living in your head all day, bright colors are just unpleasant.
On a related note, I know 3 couples who party a lot. Large quantities of alchohol and cocaine.
All 3 redecorated their home in gray, black and chrome.
I think we're seeing a drug-induced change in how they appreciate colors.
Doesn't have to be "living in your head", some people are just very easily distracted by bright colors, or visual chaos in general.
I find the number of people with bare white walls far stranger.
> to surround themselves with drab, undistracting stuff so that they can better focus on their mental life
They wouldn't be buying an expensive German automobile or sports car in the first place, regardless of the colour.
As someone who is more read I care to be about the culture of early new england I feel very comfortable (and by comfortable, I mean I hate it and I think that it is a terrible trend) saying that the current crop of people who fancy themselves intellectuals and historical puritans have approximately the same politics. They have some radically different beliefs about acceptable behavior but the overarching fundamentals about right vs wrong and community, family and self line up very well. This is not a compliment.
"Impure thoughts are a danger to democracy, access denied."
How can you tell when somebody has been removed from the conversation? How does a conversation that's been tweaked visibly differ from normal?
We could be living in a world of total bullshit, yet oblivious.
The impression these cars make on me is slightly less alien: they remind me of the drab utility vehicles I saw in my youth in Romania, painted with whatever paint was available (definitely no sparkle included).
https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/a-brief-history-...
The tldr from the article-
TL; DR Version
• Everyone remembers their favorite car’s unique color, so when did we fade to black?
• Yellow, green and teal cars may fetch you a higher resale value due to relatively few of them
• Cars were first painted like carriages, color was expensive, didn’t last
• Henry Ford offered cars in black asphalt enamels because that color dried the fastest and was more durable than oil-based paints
• General Motors and Dupont partnered up for Duco, a new paint that made it easier to apply colorful paints that dried even faster than before
• Car manufacturers started color advisory boards to suss out trends in popular culture and report back
•Everyone got wacky on colors for a while, including in the ‘60s and ‘70s
• We’re boring these days, choosing mostly black, white and gray/silver
• The recession scared people into a neutral colors phase, giving rise to the popularity of black, white and silver/gray
• The future is bright once again, however, as experts see colorful paint jobs coming back
As to why panels aren't replaceable. It's cost and weight. If your panel just unbolts, you have the weight of bolts and fasteners, durability of it becoming loose, assembly time at the factory, etc. For modern vehicles, a lot of the class-A body panels you see are structural components. Without these, you would need a stiffer unibody or frame. Cost and weight top to bottom.
The BMW Z1 is the only one I could find in 2 seconds searching, but I could swear Pontiac or someone tried this too.
You can be lighter and cheaper if you don’t plan on swapping panels out.
Body shops are pretty good at what they do.
Fancier cars like McLaren go the entire opposite direction. Some panels have no way of coming out at all they are part of the carbon tub, other panels must be cut out with a knife because they don’t bolt on anywhere.
I've been wondering about this for years. At first, I thought it might have something to do with new paint manufacturing techniques or environmental concerns with traditional paint jobs. But probably just a design trend.
There was a steel coated flake I saw at an auto show that used magnets in the process to put effects in before drying.
I know I saw a titanium at some point, but I wasn't doing the work. So I don't know much other than "metal flake" is largely an effect and not always ingredient.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09257...
Make sure you get to an MSF course, they teach you about lane positioning for visibility and defensive riding techniques. Some assume this means riding like Tom Cruise, but most saftey occurs by never being in an incident at all.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snooker
If you get a quote through the Australian site provided, you will be questioned about the color of your vehicle, and this is how that data was collected. Car insurance quotes in the US do not ask you what color your car is.
1. Having any less-common color raises the price of insurance because, in the event of damage, the car will be more expensive to repaint. "For example, metallic paint can be more expensive than a standard colour and therefore the car may be more expensive to replace." 2. Gray and silver cars are the most likely to get into accidents, not red. (Red is #3.) 3. A price comparison site quoted the highest insurance rates for gray and black cars, not red.
I've worked for insurance companies here in Australia and the UK. Not all insurance companies ask about car colour but some do. I assume it would be the same in many other countries.
I bet there's a hefty premium for Vantablack! https://www.bmw.com/en/design/the-bmw-X6-vantablack-car.html
maybe it's only because cops think the same thing you do
It's also as invisible as possible against the background of an asphalt road. Also a bad thing. Unless headlights come on automatically in fog or twilight, that aesthetic will likely be a deadly one.
The main reason could be to increase the profit for the maker (or reduce the market prize so they could compete). Should be also cheaper to repaint for the owner
Only for neutral cars. Flashy cars (like the Audis and Porsches described in the article) carry a premium when they're flashy colors. There are even whole events dedicated to unusually-colored Porsches (paint to sample).
Grey/Silver color range is much easier to keep clean, and stays cooler in the sun.
That's true, however there's also a surprisingly big drop in reflectance going from white (~85%) to even a light gray (~50%). Now these figures are for "normal" flat paint used for steel construction, the glossy metallic paints used for cars probably have higher reflectances. But still.
The last time I bought a car it was my Camaro. I wanted orange. They didn’t have orange. They had orange-red along with two other reds. I would have loved a deep forest green, but all they had was a neon green.
So I got white.
The closest analogue I've personally seen is polish ziltz, pigsfeet in clear gelatin.
Agree. The cars are now screaming "don't look at me!"
(I happen to like looking at cars however.)
I tend to pick white now, which is also the best colour for hot climates like mine.