What Is Elon Musk's Favorite Color? The Answer Is Unsurprisingly Complicated. The Tesla CEO spoke about his philosophy on what makes a color move you.
By Dan Bova
When Elon Musk was a kid, we're guessing he took a long time to decide which color crayon he'd pull out of that Crayola 64 megapack.
When discussing the first update on Tesla color schemes in years, CEO Elon Musk discussed at length the thinking behind the new schemes. For the past few years, Teslas have only been available in black, blue, white, gray and red. New colors will include:
- Deep Crimson Multicoat
- Abyss Blue Multicoat
- Mercury Silver Metallic
As with everything Musk does, this isn't just about picking out a pretty color from a chart. In 2020, Musk announced in a tweet, "Giga Berlin will have world's most advanced paint shop, with more layers of stunning colors that subtly change with curvature."
Giga Berlin will have world's most advanced paint shop, with more layers of stunning colors that subtly change with curvature
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2020
Fast forward to 2022 when production has finally begun at Gigafactory Berlin. During an event kicking off Model Y deliveries, Musk explained: "With respect to colors and which colors are going to be available from this factory, colors are always a challenge because when you think about colors, you don't only need to manufacture it, but you also need service it and fix it for 20 years. We got to think, "What are we going to put the service team through?'"
Related: Why is Elon Musk So Successful? It All Comes Down to These 5 Key Traits.
He went on to add: "We have to be careful with the total number of colors, but we are going to make some special colors here, and it's about more than the color itself, but the layers of paint in order to get the dimensionality. We are going to make a very special red, which probably a lot of people have seen. It's like 13 layers of paint. And we will also have a silver with maybe eight layers. It's also going to be special – kind of a liquid silver."
Auto expert at Electrek Fred Lambert points out that the red he is referring to has likely already been seen because it is believed to be the color of Musk's personal Model S.
