NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 12, 2025--
Neutral car colors are massively popular. For decades, paint colors have been trapped in grayscale. About 80% of today’s vehicles are some shade of gray, silver, white or black – up from 60% in 2004 1. Meanwhile, blue vehicles accounted for just 9% of sales in 2024 2. In a world where people crave individuality – custom sneakers, personalized playlists and a return of bold colors in pop culture – why are most cars colorless?
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Nissan is bucking the trend – offering a brand-new blue for 2025. Debuting on the all-new 2025 Murano, Aurora Blue Metallic 3 is the perfect fit for the redesigned crossover’s crisp lines and muscular rear haunches.
Yasuhito Oba, a color designer in Nissan’s Advanced Design Department, specializes in creating colors for the North American market, which is the primary target for Murano. Oba was a key player in developing the new paint – a process that takes over two years. He said that just like the rest of the all-new Murano’s design, Aurora Blue Metallic was inspired by nature.
“The Murano name comes from an island in Italy, so something inspired by the ocean made sense,” Oba said. “This color shares shades of blue found in the sea.”
Creating an all-new color is a complex process, especially for one with as much depth as Aurora Blue Metallic. Designers create countless versions of the color to get it just right. They make samples and see how they look in a wide variety of light conditions, on different materials, and during different times of day. Look closely, and you’ll see Aurora Blue Metallic features greenish-blue highlights and reddish shades. Oba explained that to achieve this, designers added two special pigments to the paint.
“A blue aluminum flake enhances the depth of the blue, while a color-shifting flake brings out reddish shades,” he said.
Indeed, the paint looks remarkably different depending on the time of day, sunlight, its location on the vehicle and the viewing angle. Midday in the sunshine, it appears as a bright blue. In the evening, however, the blue transforms into a deep and dreamy shade.
“Even in dark conditions, it has nuance,” Oba said. “It looks like an intense, dark blue – again, reminiscent of the ocean.”
Oba’s team in Japan collaborated with Nissan Design America (NDA) to ensure the color-shifting elements in the paint looked correct at all angles. The NDA team then traveled to Nissan’s assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee to validate the paint’s appearance on pre-production units.
When creating the 2025 Murano, Nissan designers worked closely with engineers to shrink gaps between body panels and create a more seamless, high-quality appearance. Aurora Blue Metallic helps emphasize that attention to detail.
“It works really well to enhance that uniform look – on both the sharp and smooth lines in the bodywork,” Oba said.
Murano offers available features like climate-controlled massaging front seats, 64-color interior ambient lighting and 21-inch wheels. The color team wanted Aurora Blue Metallic to emphasize those upscale components.
“We wanted to provide a premium yet light impression,” Oba said.
Aurora Blue Metallic is just the latest example of how Nissan is moving to provide drivers with options that defy convention. In fact, every vehicle sold in the U.S. is available in a shade of blue.
“Some are deep, some are light – but each model has an option,” Oba said. “It was important for us to offer customers choices beyond the norm.”
In addition to Aurora Blue Metallic, the 2025 Murano is available in 12 colors, including two-tone options that feature a contrasting black roof.
Much like the northern lights, Aurora Blue Metallic looks like it’s constantly changing color. It’s an effect that took years of refinement, but Oba says it was time well spent.
“We wanted to remind people of the magic moments in nature. This color does just that,” he said.
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1 Source: iSeeCars study, 2023
2 Source: Kelly Blue Book, 2024
3 Aurora Blue Metallic is an extra-cost option on Murano SL and Platinum grades.
Neutral car colors are massively popular. For decades, paint colors have been trapped in grayscale. About 80% of today's vehicles are some shade of gray, silver, white or black – up from 60% in 2004. Meanwhile, blue vehicles accounted for just 9% of sales in 2024. In a world where people crave individuality – custom sneakers, personalized playlists and a return of bold colors in pop culture – why are most cars colorless? Nissan is bucking the trend – offering a brand-new blue for 2025. Debuting on the all-new 2025 Murano, Aurora Blue Metallic is the perfect fit for the redesigned crossover's crisp lines and muscular rear haunches. (Photo: Business Wire)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia bombed Yemen's port city of Mukalla on Tuesday after a weapons shipment from the United Arab Emirates arrived for separatist forces in the war-torn country, and warned that it viewed Emirati actions as “extremely dangerous.”
The bombing followed tensions over the advance of Emirates-backed separatist forces known as the Southern Transitional Council. The council and its allies issued a statement supporting the UAE's presence, even as others allied with Saudi Arabia demanded that Emirati forces withdraw from Yemen in 24 hours' time.
The UAE called for “restraint and wisdom” and disputed Riyadh’s allegations. But shortly after that, it said it would withdraw its remaining troops in Yemen. It remained unclear whether the separatists it backs will give up the territory they recently took.
The confrontation threatened to open a new front in Yemen's decade-long war, with forces allied against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels possibly turning their sights on each other in the Arab world's poorest nation.
It also further strained ties between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula that increasingly have competed over economic issues and regional politics, particularly in the Red Sea area. Tuesday’s airstrikes and ultimatum appeared to be their most serious confrontation in decades.
“I expect a calibrated escalation from both sides. The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council is likely to respond by consolidating control,” said Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen expert and founder of the Basha Report, a risk advisory firm.
“At the same time, the flow of weapons from the UAE to the STC is set to be curtailed following the port attack, particularly as Saudi Arabia controls the airspace.”
A military statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency announced the strikes on Mukalla, which it said came after ships arrived there from Fujairah in the UAE.
“The ships’ crew had disabled tracking devices aboard the vessels, and unloaded a large amount of weapons and combat vehicles in support of the Southern Transitional Council’s forces,” the statement said.
“Considering that the aforementioned weapons constitute an imminent threat, and an escalation that threatens peace and stability, the Coalition Air Force has conducted this morning a limited airstrike that targeted weapons and military vehicles offloaded from the two vessels in Mukalla,” it added.
It wasn't clear if there were any casualties.
The Emirati Foreign Ministry hours later denied it shipped weapons but acknowledged it sent the vehicles “for use by the UAE forces operating in Yemen.” It also claimed Saudi Arabia knew about the shipment ahead of time.
The ministry called for “the highest levels of coordination, restraint and wisdom, taking into account the existing security challenges and threats.”
The Emirati Defense Ministry later said it would withdraw its remaining troops from Yemen over “recent developments and their potential repercussions on the safety and effectiveness of counter-terrorism operations.” It gave no timeline for the withdrawal. The UAE broadly withdrew its forces from Yemen years earlier.
Yemen’s anti-Houthi forces not aligned with the separatists declared a state of emergency Tuesday and ended their cooperation with the UAE. They issued a 72-hour ban on border crossings in territory they hold, as well as entries to airports and seaports, except those allowed by Saudi Arabia. It remained unclear whether that coalition, governed under the umbrella of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, would remain intact.
The Southern Transitional Council’s AIC satellite news channel aired footage of the strike's aftermath but avoided showing damage to the armored vehicles.
“This unjustified escalation against ports and civilian infrastructure will only strengthen popular demands for decisive action and the declaration of a South Arabian state,” the channel said.
The attack likely targeted a ship identified as the Greenland, a vessel flagged out of St. Kitts. Tracking data analyzed by the AP showed the vessel had been in Fujairah on Dec. 22 and arrived in Mukalla on Sunday. The second vessel could not be immediately identified.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office, urged combatants to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, like the port, saying any disruption to its operations “risks affecting the already dire humanitarian situation and humanitarian supply chains.”
Mukalla is in Yemen's Hadramout governorate, which the council seized in recent days. The port city is some 480 kilometers (300 miles) northeast of Aden, which has been the seat of power for anti-Houthi forces after the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.
Yemen, on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula off East Africa, borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The war there has killed more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.
The Houthis, meanwhile, have launched attacks on hundreds of ships in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, disrupting regional shipping. The U.S., which earlier praised Saudi-Emirati efforts to end the crisis over the separatists, has launched airstrikes against the rebels under both Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Tuesday's strike in Mukalla comes after Saudi Arabia targeted the council in airstrikes Friday that analysts described as a warning for the separatists to halt their advance and leave the governorates of Hadramout and Mahra.
The council had pushed out forces there affiliated with the Saudi-backed National Shield Forces, another group in the anti-Houthi coalition.
Those aligned with the council have increasingly flown the flag of South Yemen, which was a separate country from 1967-1990. Demonstrators have been rallying to support political forces calling for South Yemen to secede again.
A statement Tuesday from Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry directly linked the council's advance to the Emiratis for the first time.
“The kingdom notes that the steps taken by the sisterly United Arab Emirates are extremely dangerous,” it said.
Allies of the council later issued a statement in which they showed no sign of backing down.
Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.
This frame grab from video broadcast by Saudi state television on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025, shows what the kingdom describes as a shipment of weapons and armored vehicles coming from the United Arab Emirates, at Mukalla, Yemen. (Saudi state television via AP)
