White should be base color not Black!

[frequencydip]

Tesla should have made white the base color of the car simply because white is a more efficient car as it reflects more light and reduces the need for air conditioning and cooling the battery when parked in a sunny parking lot.

Please Tesla make white the default!

Supporting research
Cooler-colored cars are up to 2 percent more fuel efficient than darker-colored ones

 

[Thomas Edison]

I'm pretty sure that the black is nonmetallic in the white is metallic which is why the black is free .

 

[kev1n]

I'm pretty sure that the black is nonmetallic in the white is metallic which is why the black is free .

there use to be a solid white until they discontinued it

 

[Derek Kessler]

Speaking from personal experience in owning two of the same generation of Honda Civic (one black outside with a tan interior, the other blue with a dark gray interior) the color of the interior makes a far greater difference in interior cabin heat than the color of the body.

Also, the battery is on the bottom of the car, so the amount of heat that reaches there from the outer body would be minimal. It's more the heat of the outside, including any sun-warmed blacktop that you've just parked over, that will warm the battery.

All that aside, the car performs better with a warmer battery anyway. Try it out here: Model S | Tesla

 

[ChadS]

I agree with Derek. A light color on an ICE makes sense to reduce AC load. But an EV likes a warm battery; and more important, the EV doesn't have waste heat for the cabin. Heating the cabin generally is a larger hit than cooling the cabin in an EV (try it with the range estimator that Derek linked to). So a dark color may be best.

That is, overall. Of course there are exceptions in places like, say, Phoenix.

Plus the black is only a single coat without the metallic flakes.

I would be very happy to see them bring back flat white as a free option! But I don't think temperature is a good argument for switching from black to white as the default.

 

[Thomas Edison]

there use to be a solid white until they discontinued it

That is irrelevant now though.

 

[Stolz25]

Oh sure, replace black with the only color I want less than black.

 

[chronopc]

They should have made silver the base because that's the color I want.

 

[206er]

both black and white should be base colors, especially if those horrid aero rims are the base wheels.

 

[Chris L]

I don't think anyone is suggesting that standard paint should only be one color (except Tesla). Virtually every other manufacturer offers at least black and white, and most offer additional standard colors. And nobody is asking Tesla to make white pearl a standard color; a solid bright white should be added as a standard color (as it once was—perhaps it was too popular).

As someone who moved to Southern California from the east coast, I can attest that the intensity of the sun is surprisingly hot here in the summer, beyond any expectations. If you live in Ohio, or Seattle, or Massachusetts, etc., you have no idea how intense the summer sun is in the southern latitudes. And given that Southern California is the biggest market for electric cars, Tesla should make some accommodation. That, and white is traditionally the most popular color for cars in the U.S.

 

[acuracing]

It's all financially driven - they know the majority of owners do not want black and will "upgrade" to a different color. Same with the wheel situation.

 

[TSLA Pilot]

Yes, the base color should have been white, like it was for years on the Model S and X. Sadly, black is the absolute worst color for efficiency as the cooling loads will be much higher trying to cool black colored cars. (The supposedly positive heat transfer to the battery is negligible given that it is under the car.)

 

[BerTX]

I'd rather it be white, too. I wonder about the heat difference in the car, though, since the roof is all glass. How much of the difference in heat gain due to paint color was because of the color of the roof in previous cars?

I suppose it's possible they got rid of the white because of problems with the solvents not working correctly (remember they are under strict restrictions in California). I doubt it -- I agree with the "too popular" idea.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to recall that the reason given for discontinuing solid white was lack of popularity, which I thought was BS.

 

[Stolz25]

I think purple.

 

[Garlan Garner]

I think purple.

How about Fuchsia?

 

[brucet999]

I'm pretty sure that the black is nonmetallic in the white is metallic which is why the black is free .

Take it from an old paint factory guy. Plain white is not a metallic paint. I think you may be conflating the idea of titanium dioxide pigment (white) with metallic. TIO2 is so harmless that it appears in the ingredients labels of white cake frosting mixes. It is also a comparatively inexpensive pigment, although not as cheap to make as black.

My guess is that white is not offered because Tesla wants to keep costs in the paint shop down by eliminating the need for extra inventory, handling equipment, etc. It costs less to run a paint shop with fewer colors. It could be too, that their experience with MS was that plain white was a low volume choice compared to Pearl White. They don't offer plain white on MS or MX either.

 

[Thomas Edison]

Take it from an old paint factory guy. Plain white is not a metallic paint. I think you may be conflating the idea of titanium dioxide pigment (white) with metallic. TIO2 is so harmless that it appears in the ingredients labels of white cake frosting mixes. It is also a comparatively inexpensive pigment, although not as cheap to make as black.

My guess is that white is not offered because Tesla wants to keep costs in the paint shop down by eliminating the need for extra inventory, handling equipment, etc. It costs less to run a paint shop with fewer colors. It could be too, that their experience with MS was that plain white was a low volume choice compared to Pearl White. They don't offer plain white on MS or MX either.

The white in the m3 is not plain white, the black is however plain. Which is why I said what I said. So what am I conflating?

 

[Stirfelt]

Here in the mountain west .... white is the predominant vehicle color. Oh sure, there are exceptions, and I have not conducted a survey, but it is not uncommon to be waiting at a stop light and 6 our of 10 vehicles will be white.

 

[voip-ninja]

Speaking from personal experience in owning two of the same generation of Honda Civic (one black outside with a tan interior, the other blue with a dark gray interior) the color of the interior makes a far greater difference in interior cabin heat than the color of the body.

Also, the battery is on the bottom of the car, so the amount of heat that reaches there from the outer body would be minimal. It's more the heat of the outside, including any sun-warmed blacktop that you've just parked over, that will warm the battery.

All that aside, the car performs better with a warmer battery anyway. Try it out here: Model S | Tesla

All that aside, a black car looks clean where I live for perhaps 10 minutes.

Black is not a terribly popular car color anywhere in the US. It seems that Tesla was really trying hard to force people to pay for any paint choice and offered the obligatory 'meh' color as standard that 90% of buyers will pony up $1000 to option out of.

Now if they offered some kind of cool gun metal black-gray or something that would be pretty cool.

 

[brucet999]

The white in the m3 is not plain white, the black is however plain. Which is why I said what I said. So what am I conflating?

I'm sorry. I completely misread your post as saying that plain white paint had metallic content.

Technically, the new white is pearlescent, not metallic, but that is just a picky paint-guy detail having nothing to do with your valid point that today's white is more costly to make and to apply than black.