Like black cars? You might have to act fast...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Philly
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Metar
The reason why many cars here in Israel (and Israel is just as eastern-desert hot as it's neighbors) are white is for financial reasons: Plain white, sometimes Champagne-gold, is simply the blandest, most inoffensive colour - one that sells well to the masses of leasing customers which are 70% of the market.

With the ambient outside temperatures we have here, even a car parked in the shade gets quite hot (summer temps in the shadow are around 40c), and in the sun, any car gets steaming hot - and colours really don't matter. The interior, which is still almost always black, becomes untouchable - putting on a seatbelt without allowing it to cool off first will leave marks on bare skin.

Black or white makes a huge difference when the timeframe is short - like the bit with the shirt. Leave your car for more than a quarter hour, and the differences will disappear.
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I agree. If you've left your car out all day then there isn't much that's going to help, but I was just highlighting that it's not strictly true that colour doesn't have any effect.

Regarding price and inoffensiveness, I can see how it applies at the bottom end of the market, but people seem to buy white cars at the top end too - it's amazing the amount of flash cars in Dubai that I see when I go over that are white. Top-end Mercedes, Audi R8s, BMW X6s, Bentleys etc - the majority seem to be white (though I do have to admit, it reminds me of the clip in a recent Family Guy "that black guy must be doing well, because everything he owns is white!").

I dunno, basically :p It just seems like a logical explanation.
 
That's a status thing. Completely-white (expensive) cars, just like completely-black cars, are seen as more luxurious. I can guarantee that a Sheik won't buy a white car because it gets less hot - if a Skoda's AC can get the temps down to 15-20c in the summer, then a Merc's surely can, too (especially in those fancy private garages).
 
It's pretty simple, really. Glass will allow sunlight to go straight through but will trap heat like no amount of CO2 that's ever been emitted by any population ever. That's why greenhouses are made of glass, and not painted steel, which is quite conductive to heat in comparison. (aluminum even more so.)

If California wants to really reduce A/C use from cars, they should ban glass. Drivers can use cameras, right?

This is what happens when people without engineering degrees try to design...or force a design on...cars.

[/devil'sadvocate]
 
Jim Prower
It's pretty simple, really. Glass will allow sunlight to go straight through but will trap heat like no amount of CO2 that's ever been emitted by any population ever. That's why greenhouses are made of glass, and not painted steel, which is quite conductive to heat in comparison. (aluminum even more so.)

If California wants to really reduce A/C use from cars, they should ban glass. Drivers can use cameras, right?

This is what happens when people without engineering degrees try to design...or force a design on...cars.

[/devil'sadvocate]
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Well, greenhouses are primarily glass or some clear plastic because plants benefit most from a full spectrum of light... Glass isn't a great insulating and thus why homes that are remotely modern use double pane setups to provide superior insulation.

Honestly, there isn't a lot you can do about standing objects absorbing heat. Changing the composition of the paint and clear coats would probably make a greater difference than actual colors. Over longer periods of time, it is just the interior that absorbs more heat, and because the air is stagnant in the car, it doesn't circulate it at all. Putting up those reflector things on the dash helps quite a bit, as does window tint.
 
I did do an experiment on something like this my freshman year of high school. I don't remember any of the specifics, but I think that as long as you were using an actual color, the temperature was pretty much the same under sunlight for all colors. I don't remember what happened for white and black though.
 
MythBusters (Discovery Channel) did a test in one episode.

From Wikipedia:
MythBusters used two identical cars, one black the other white and left them both out in the summer heat with thermometers in both. By mid-afternoon the white car had a temperature of 126 °F (52.2 °C), while the black car had heated up to a temperature of 135 °F (57.2 °C), about 9 degrees hotter in the Fahrenheit scale.
 
maybe CARB committee should lay down the weed, pot, and whatever they're smoking there..
 
Quattro20v
From Wikipedia:
MythBusters used two identical cars, one black the other white and left them both out in the summer heat with thermometers in both. By mid-afternoon the white car had a temperature of 126 °F (52.2 °C), while the black car had heated up to a temperature of 135 °F (57.2 °C), about 9 degrees hotter in the Fahrenheit scale.
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Either way, that's still so hot that you're going to need the AC on for a long time to get it down to a bearable 65 or something. And I bet cracking the windows would help both cars a lot, and probably lower the difference significantly.
 
Doesn't sound terrible, though I shudder to think what it'll be like driving at night...
 
Awww... too bad. I was so looking forward to the return of white tops.

I've been thinking of taping up the top of my black van with reflectorized sticker paper, just to see how much heat I can remove...

And, yes, I believe we should all be driving white cars. Not to make them cooler in the summer, mind you, but to increase the Earth's albedo and lower global temperatures. To that effect, we should repaint all asphalt roads white, or layer them with concrete powder, to increase their reflectivity. :lol:
 
White roads...great for wintertime! "Where's the road?" "How the hell should I know, everything is white!"
 
Philly
CARB says "Haha just kidding."

So they do have half a brain in their skulls and realized what was causing the problem... More reflective glass should be interesting. I wonder if that means tint or one-way glass...
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:lol:

I just came across that article elsewhere. As for reflective glass... not really surprising. Loads of manufacturers have been doing UV-reflective windscreens for years (we had a Renault Megane about 10 or more years ago that had one, the screen had a very blue reflective tint on the outside, looked normal from the inside) and rally cars often use mirror-like tint on hot rallies such as Cyprus:

fxpro_cyprus_rally_wilson.jpg
 
Like this?

2000+Lexus+RX+300.jpg


Very probably. It's quite widely available as retrofit. In the UK you often see Transit vans and the like with that stuff on the rear windows, though I suspect that's for security rather than temperature reduction.
 

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