6 ms·
The color options are a much bigger deal than I think many people realize. It's been too many years since I saw the studies so I have no hope of being able to
by freedomben 4mo ago
The color options are a much bigger deal than I think many people realize. It's been too many years since I saw the studies so I have no hope of being able to cite it, but in a marketing class in college I remember reading about how much people value picking a color they really like, that they feel matches their personality. It increases satisfaction, significantly reduces the cognitive dissonance (aka "buyers remorse") that usually accompanies a major purchase, and increases identity sharing (where the vehicle feels like part of your identity, which is good for brand loyalty and total ownership satisfaction). I've been surprised how limited the color palette usually is for vehicles given all that. It will be interesting to see how Slate does!
- ellyagg 4mo agoI noticed recently it’s cool to match the color of your vehicle to your house
- zamadatix 4mo agoAnything beats https://blog.iseecars.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Grayscale-Car-Colors-Black-Gray-Silver-White-Market-Share_-1996-to-2025-iSeeCars-Study2.png https://blog.iseecars.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Graysca...
- baq 4mo agoI've got a feeling this approaches 100% at airports
- soco 4mo agoAnd Swiss architecture - birthplace of Le Corbusier, and the very definition of dull gray chunks.
- ted_bunny 4mo agoWhy is this? I find it hard to imagine the appeal of so much grey. Half of them look like cheap plastic.
- AngryData 4mo agoSupposedly it holds/people think it holds more resale value to not have loud colors.
- tmerc 4mo agoI think it's less about the value. Special cars do well in loud colors. World rally Blue on Subaru, Tahitian Green and Barbados yellow on Honda, sunburst yellow on Miatas, all demand a higher price for the color. Loud colors reduce the pool of buyers. A yellow Rav 4 isn't desirable outside of a few people but they're not going to pay more for it. A yellow crx is a rare car and someone is looking for it willing to spend more for that cursed paint code than the same spec in white.
- alamortsubite 4mo agoOr clothes, if you really want to do it right, like Madeline Khan's character in High Anxiety.
- efsavage 4mo agoAFAIK there's actually only one color and you can wrap it. The wrap kits are supposed to be DIY friendly so you can change it yourself when you want a new color.
- xattt 4mo agoThis is great if you have a garage to do it in. This is terrible if you’re an apartment dweller and have no workshop space!
- vablings 4mo agoParking garage, a friend's house etc.. You make it work.
- netsharc 4mo agoSounds like the vinyls will feel like "Hooray my own kinda car!" but will end up in the storage room with "I'll stick these on later" note in the buyers' heads.
- baby_souffle 4mo agoYou can order a wrapped professionally from the factory. Depending upon which segment of the body panels it's as cheap as a few hundred bucks all the way up to something like 800 bucks for a full wrap. I don't think I've ever gone shopping for a car and had the dealer present me with the exact same trim options but color selection was only going to change the MSRP by $800 at most...
- baby_souffle 4mo agoToo late to edit parent but I might be wrong about wrap from the factory. (up to) $800 just for the materials is still reasonable but even with experience doing wraps, I would probably still bring it to a shop. DIY wrap is a bit like baking cookies; you don't need much in terms of skill or tools to do it but you absolutely can tell the difference between cookies made in your average kitchen using the recipe on the back of the box versus cookies made by people that earn a living making cookies.
- whatever1 4mo agoAnd then they pick black or white.
- xnx 4mo agoWraps are nice because they're not permanent and don't affect resale value. Having a car without a wrap might soon be as unusual as a phone without a case.
- formerly_proven 4mo agoime for many models colors are sufficiently rarely ordered from the factory that they ironically have higher resale values than the standard grey/white/black ones.
- x3qt 4mo agoI thought only poor people used phone cases. Otherwise, what’s the point of having an iPhone Air or any other premium built phone at all?
- keanukerr 4mo agoHow many people have an iPhone Air?
- x3qt 4mo agoThat’s exactly why I added “or any other premium.” Why buy a sleek phone made of premium materials just to bury it in the cheapest, ugliest, chunkiest plastic case you can find?
- baby_souffle 4mo agoI don't think the super cheap and chunky phone cases are analogous to a wrap here. I know more than a few people with very expensive phones covered in thin carbon fiber style cases which are there purely to protect the glass and metal from egregious scratches, though.
- llm_nerd 4mo agoThe four most common vehicle colours in the US are white, black, grey and silver. I believe this covers like 80%+ of vehicles. Canada is worse still (so much so that many makers basically just offer the shades of grey, sometimes with a special-order red or something for the rebels), and a few days ago I was on a walk and saw a light turn red and a dozen cars that pulled up to stop and every single one was white. People have other colour choices, but they're constantly choosing the most spectacularly boring, neutral colours possible. The colour thing is neat, but I'm not sure it's going to be a big deal. It might actually lead to the paradox of choice where people basically feel even worse about their options.
- vel0city 4mo agoGoing by what I hear talking to friends and family, they often don't want to choose outside of those range of bland colors as they're worried about resale value. Its probably easier to find a buyer who is OK with a black car than someone who would want metallic purple and gold car or a bright pink car. Wraps are typically pretty easy to remove. Far easier than removing a paint job.
- deltoidmaximus 4mo agoI could have sworn there was actually some kind of study that proved this. Cars are sufficiently expensive and longer lived these days that resale value is actually something buyers at least think they need to take into account. It's actually a little depressing if you're sitting in traffic, just watch the cars go by and see how few of them actually have a unique color. And most of the exceptions are something like an almost gray blue. For my part I've found new car styling hideous with little difference between brands my entire adult life. Probably for nostalgic reasons I like the sharp geometric shapes of cars from the 1980s which largely disappeared with a focus aerodynamics for gas mileage. So I'm usually satisfied with whatever color is on the lot since I hate the look by default anyway.
- sokoloff 4mo agoIf you’re that worried about resale value, I’d think that buying a 2-4 year old used car is a way better proposition.
- vel0city 4mo ago> The color options are a much bigger deal than I think many people realize. Any mass-market car has practically the same color options. Wraps have existed for a looong time.
- eddieroger 4mo agoWraps exist for folks who pursue it, which is always going to be a subset of those who only look at dealer / manufacturer options. Being able to get a wrapped vehicle off the line is a new option for most buyers.
- bitexploder 4mo agoSlate does not wrap the vehicle at manufacturing time. You do it or a service center does it for you.
- baby_souffle 4mo agoIs that confirmed? I was under the impression that you could order wrap from factory and it would come wrapped and not in a kit ready for you to apply.
- vel0city 4mo agoThe featured website here directly states you need to either install the wrap yourself or hire someone else to do it.
- esseph 4mo agoUntrue. Slate can wrap before delivery. > It will operate as the central shop where the modular two-door, two-passenger pickups will be wrapped in custom colors and finishes chosen by customers, with more than 100 color options available. https://news.dealershipguy.com/p/slate-auto-bets-on-customization-with-7-8m-wrap-facility-in-kentucky https://news.dealershipguy.com/p/slate-auto-bets-on-customiz... https://www.courier-journal.com/story/money/companies/2026/03/26/jeff-bezos-backed-ev-startup-slate-auto-coming-to-louisville-kentucky/89330890007/ https://www.courier-journal.com/story/money/companies/2026/0...
- V__ 4mo agoThat was my first thought as well. I can't articulate why, but if the company and product survive a few years, it feels to me like it might become a modern "cult" car.
- cvdub 4mo agoDefinitely! Gen Z & A value uniqueness and authenticity. I think the customization options will resonate a lot with them.
- overfeed 4mo agoI heard cars with zany colors get stuck on the sales lot for much longer than boring colors. If that is true, customizations lower the value on the secondary market relative to factory restrained factory options, and the owners may get lowballed when trading in their cars, or will invest more time of selling as a 1st party. If car colors were not mired in paperwork, I imagine dealers would respray them some shade of Millennial-gray, similar to realtors' M.O. when prepping homes for sale.
- lotsofpulp 4mo ago> If car colors were not mired in paperwork, I imagine dealers would respray them some shade of Millennial-gray, similar to realtors' M.O. when prepping homes for sale. It is far more difficult to properly paint a vehicle than it is to paint a house.
- pjc50 4mo agoI think this is starting to change, fortunately, with things like the yellow Renault 5s. Mind you, when ordering a lease car for the first time recently, I did notice that I was paying a premium for non-bland colours. I suspect the weird financial structure of new cars has - they're often not bought to hold, but leased - has a lot to do with the blandness.
- kevin_thibedeau 4mo agoThere's a large segment of population that will only buy white/black/gray. The paint lines are geared toward those that sell well and special colors are relegated to shorter runs with more expense for changeovers.
- SoftTalker 4mo agoI'm not sure they are. I don't think most people give two shits about the color of a vehicle, that's why most of them today are white or silver.
- volkk 4mo agoI think people care more than you think and it's mostly an effect of the limited options setting the tone/culture for most of society so when "exciting" colors randomly come out, nobody wants to stand out amongst the sea of silver/black/white. I bet if cars became more funky on average, people would exercise a lot more freedom in selecting wilder colors. An example of a culture of fun selection is snow sports. Colors rule the landscape, and yes sometimes for safety, but it's also because it highlights personality.
- freedomben 4mo agoAgreed. I care about the color, but not enough to wait for "special order" so I end up taking whatever is in stock at the dealership, which is always the bland colors. I love a green car, but there's almost never an option (or the green is hideous)
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- insane_dreamer 4mo agoI agree, this is a very smart move. I just wish they had also released a smaller body, so you could build something close to a regular hatchback (like a Golf or Mazda 3)
- red-iron-pine 4mo agothen buy a chevy volt, mate
- kart23 4mo agothey’re selling a diy wrap. in other words, you get a large flat colored sticker (maybe pre-cut if you’re lucky, but these actually fit worse). wrapping your car and making it look good is NOT diy friendly, it’s a pain in the ass. you need special equipment, space to do it, etc. it’s actually incredibly disappointing, because 99% of people are just gonna get the gray, and will be unhappy because it’s super boring. real manufactures like porsche or bmw offer a ton of shades too, it just costs a lot, but they are very popular.
- ericzundel 4mo agoThe way I see it, you buy the kit and take it to a professional who is going to charge somewhere between $1000 and $3000 to install it. That's a lot more onerous than the buying a pre-colored car right off the lot, but many people already opt to have their car wrapped anyway. It's a wait and see game to see what installers like that would want - the pre-cut package or just buy the material directly from them. The real downside to wraps from my perspective is that they don't last as long as a regular paint job. After 4 or 5 years you'll see damage and need to get it re-done if you care about the look. And if the underlying plastic is scuffed up, the plastic panel will need to be repaired before the new wrap will go on smoothly.
- oliver66677 4mo agodon't believe those marketing research