Because black colors absorb heat and white colors reflect it, common intuition says that black cars get hotter in the sun. But what does science have to say about it? Do black cars truly get hotter?
As you might have expected, the answer is yes. But you might be surprised to discover by just how much.
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Heat by the numbers
There’s a lot of evidence that black cars not only get hotter than white cars, but 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 would have about 2% lower fuel economy and 1.9% higher CO2 emissions than identical white or silver cars.
More recently, Autotrader performed its own test, leaving two Toyota 4Runner vehicles to bake in the Georgia sun. A few hours later, the black 4Runner’s internal cabin temperature had reached a whopping 130 degrees. The white 4Runner was at 113 degrees. Still quite hot, but a breath of fresh air compared to the black car. After 10 minutes of A/C cooling at maximum capacity, the cabin temp had gone down to 84 and 91 degrees for the black and white cars, respectively.
While white cars are marginally more popular than black cars across the United States, dark-colored interiors still dominate, and these also have an impact on heat absorption. Dark leather might not look as luxurious as beige cloth, but it’ll also turn your car into an oven.
And it’s not just the passengers who suffer. Over on YouTube, MikesCarInfo used a thermal camera to examine a row of Toyota Highlanders at a dealership, which allowed him to compare how a range of colors impacted heat absorption. The hoods of the black, gray, silver, and white SUVs were 159, 146, 129, and 113 degrees, respectively. That’s an enormous 46-degree difference between the black and white models. You can imagine how much harder the fans and radiators have to work to cool the engine under the black hood.
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 sun shade. When light rays pass through your windshield, they become trapped inside the car and create a greenhouse effect, raising the temperature. Sunshades are typically made of aluminum or some other ultra-reflective material that 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 your local regulations first). Given everything we’ve said about dark colors absorbing more heat, it may seem counterintuitive that darkening your windows would help. But applying tinting to all windows, including the windshield, can lower peak internal temperature 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 that’s still a huge improvement over the 130 degrees Autotrader measured in the black 4Runner.
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.