MVC4 DataType.Date EditorFor won't display date value in Chrome, fine in Internet Explorer

Question

When you decorate a model property with [DataType(DataType.Date)] the default template in ASP.NET MVC 4 generates an input field of type="date":

<input class="text-box single-line" 
       data-val="true" 
       data-val-date="The field EstPurchaseDate must be a date."
       id="EstPurchaseDate" 
       name="EstPurchaseDate" 
       type="date" value="9/28/2012" />

Browsers that support HTML5 such Google Chrome render this input field with a date picker.

In order to correctly display the date, the value must be formatted as 2012-09-28. Quote from the specification:

value: A valid full-date as defined in [RFC 3339], with the additional qualification that the year component is four or more digits representing a number greater than 0.

You could enforce this format using the DisplayFormat attribute:

[DataType(DataType.Date)]
[DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
public Nullable<System.DateTime> EstPurchaseDate { get; set; }

In MVC5.2, add Date.cshtml to folder ~/Views/Shared/EditorTemplates:

@model DateTime?
@{
    IDictionary<string, object> htmlAttributes;
    object objAttributes;
    if (ViewData.TryGetValue("htmlAttributes", out objAttributes))
    {
        htmlAttributes = objAttributes as IDictionary<string, object> ?? HtmlHelper.AnonymousObjectToHtmlAttributes(objAttributes);
    }
    else
    {
        htmlAttributes = new RouteValueDictionary();
    }
    htmlAttributes.Add("type", "date");
    String format = (Request.UserAgent != null && Request.UserAgent.Contains("Chrome")) ? "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}" : "{0:d}";
    @Html.TextBox("", Model, format, htmlAttributes)
}

As an addition to Darin Dimitrov's answer:

If you only want this particular line to use a certain (different from standard) format, you can use in MVC5:

@Html.EditorFor(model => model.Property, new {htmlAttributes = new {@Value = @Model.Property.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd"), @class = "customclass" } })

In MVC 3 I had to add:

using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;

among usings when adding properties:

[DataType(DataType.Date)]
[DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]

Especially if you are adding these properties in .edmx file like me. I found that by default .edmx files don't have this using so adding only propeties is not enough.

If you remove [DataType(DataType.Date)] from your model, the input field in Chrome is rendered as type="datetime" and won't show the datepicker either.