Bernhard Stengel-Rutkowski, Senior Global Technical Marketing Manager at Clariant, explains: “Recalling the car colors of the past reveals technology leaps, long-term trends and correlations that help us to make more plausible predictions about the future. Never before, however, did these predictions have to take into account such a staggering degree of disruption. Business models that have been valid for more than a century must cope with an unprecedented plethora of changes. Electrification and digitalization, urbanization, autonomous driving, car sharing, even totally new ways of driving on and above the ground, are likely to have an important effect on color in cars.”
“Clariant’s color know-how is highly appreciated by paint suppliers to the automotive industry, as well as designers and trend scouts of industries which you wouldn’t relate to cars at all,” says John Dunne, Head of Business Unit Pigments at Clariant. “As one of the few pigment producers spearheading trend color forecasting for this industry, our interpretations of how the changing world and emerging technologies will influence consumer color preferences in the next decade has become a solid base of inspiration and business decisions for our customers.”