There’s a lot of evidence showing that black cars not only get hotter than white cars, they get MUCH hotter. A 2011 study by Berkeley found that after only two hours in the sun, a black Honda Civic had a cabin air temperature about 10 degrees hotter than an identical car in silver. The same study also estimated that, due to the need for increased air conditioning, black cars have about 2% lower fuel economy and 1.9% higher CO2 emissions than identical white or silver cars.
Tricks to cool your car’s interior
Whether you have a black car or a white car, what these numbers show is that they both get too hot for comfort when left out in the sun. If you’re looking for ways to cool your car’s interior before you drive off and without having to wait for the A/C to do its thing, the following tricks can help.
Install a sunshade. When light rays pass through your windshield, they become trapped inside the car and create a greenhouse effect, raising the temperature. Sunshades significantly mitigate this effect. They’re also very affordable and, as a bonus, can protect your car’s interior from sun damage.
Tint your windows (but check local regulations first). It may seem counterintuitive that darkening your windows would help. But applying tinting to all windows, including the windshield, can lower peak internal temps by as much as 10 degrees.
Rapidly expel the hot air using the open-and-close car door trick. Open the windows on one side of the car, then open and close the doors on the other side together. Do this 4-5 times. This creates positive pressure inside the car, forcing the heated air out of the cabin, and bringing the interior air temperature closer to that of the outside. That might not seem that useful when it’s 90 degrees out, but it’s still a huge improvement over 130 degrees.
Source: The News Wheel
