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Comment by gizajob | Hacker News Reader

Is it maybe because nobody owns them, because they’re all on finance, and so will be traded in for new in three years time and so it’s best that they be as generic as possible for the next buyer?

Also this: https://www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/automotive-history/vw-pol...

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Resale value is a massive part of this.

Corporate buyers (fleet owners, hire car companies, and so on) don't want to deal with drivers complaining about a colour they don't like - in the UK giving certain colour cars to employees who support certain football teams is going to just cause pushback. Neutrals just make life a lot easier.

It’s got nothing to do with cars and the focus on them alone will lead to the wrong confusion. Grey -scale palettes have taken over the world. Look at houses, home interiors, even fashion. It’s everywhere.

https://archive.ph/2P5V7

(Site blocks EU citizens)

Looks like the perfect car for Googlers.

Yeah this must be half the reason. You don't want to buy an orange car because you'll possibly sell it one day and that likely restricts your market.

I think the other reason is probably that car manufacturers charge crazy amounts for non-default colours, so presumably everyone is buying the stock colours and those have to be fairly generic.

Funny that you mention orange cars because they were everywhere in France in the 80s. Resale value must be an important reason.

I live in a rather hot place where most cars are white, once again because everyone gets a white car because of the sun.

Here in the UK, if it isn't white or silver, it'll be metallic orange or metallic chartreuse, and they're ugly AF

I just want to say that you are likely giving the average American consumer a ton of more financial foresight and rational thinking than they likely possess. People buying trucks to use as commuter vehicles at exorbitant interest rates, brand new off the dealer’s lot and falling for the various add-ons and upsells are likely not prioritizing their ten-year profit and loss sheets.

"People buying new trucks" already restricts you to 5% of the vehicle transactions in a given year, with ~25% of purchases being new and ~20% of those being trucks. Factor in the rest of the criteria and I don't think you're really capturing the average transaction at all.

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