No, if you read what I wrote carefully you would have noticed that I wrote that all other things being equal, black absorbs more energy (= heat) than white. But the total solar radiation on ground level has a bigger IR component in total than the sum of the visible spectrum. Here is a graph. As the color you see is no indicator for the reflectivity in the invisible wavelengths, it might well be that a color that looks black to you actually reflects more energy on the IR part of the spectrum, and that a color that looks white to you might absorb more energy in the IR part of the spectrum, so that the black car might reflect more energy than the white one. You just don’t know by looking at the colour.
This is actually what happens with tinted windows, at least the producers claim so. Black windows are cooler than transparent ones, or can be made to be.
So, just to be clear: I did not claim that black cars are cooler than white cars. I said that they conceivably might be under certain circumstances, and I stated the conditions under which this will be the case. Such pigments exist, as the link in #56 shows. So I objected you calling me and all the owners of black vehicles superficial, as I believe that your post is more superficial than my assertion.
BTW: I live in Berlin, Germany, where the sun is seldom that hot and in Brussels, Belgium, famous for rain. Spain, on the other hand… well, never mind. Was that entertaining enough for you?
So a white cotton t-shit is warmer than a black high tech mesh t-shirt, so the color of your clothes doesn’t matter?
When choosing the color of a car, you are choosing two paints on otherwise identical cars. Are you seriously postulating that car manufacturers are putting some high tech non-heat absorbing black paint on some cars and then some low tech white/silver paint on otherwise identical cars?
This is the link you posted yourself in #56:
White, silver, and other light colors are coolest, reflecting about 60 percent of sunlight but there are dark “cool” colors that can also stay cooler than traditional dark colors. When dark surfaces are needed for aesthetics or to reduce brightness, one can use special “cool-colored” materials that stay moderately cool by reflecting only the invisible component of sunlight.
[…]
The research team has developed a pigment database describing a variety of colors, including browns, blues, purples, greens, and reds, that are cool, in that they are highly reflective to near-infrared radiation.
They well might do it if they discover there is a market for that and perhaps they are already doing it by chance.
Of course it is not (yet) the norm, you probably have to pay extra for them, but those colours already exist (see your own article). So yes, I am seriously suggesting that when looking at an object’s colour, if you don’t know how it absorbs/reflects the invisible parts of the spectrum, which by definition you do not see, you don’t have enough information on hand to be judgemental and call someone superficial and therefore you should not. Does not sound so preposterous to me.
Red, cause DA RED WUNZ GO FASTA!"
I wish car option selection was like it was in 1968- at least six different engines were available in a Camaro. Now, you get AN engine, and good luck trying to find a new car with a clutch! (U.S.A.)
Color selection is nearly the same.
I remember going by new car dealerships and enjoying the candy shop palette of colors on the lot. Now it’s a dull monotony, occasionally broken by a dusky red or blue. Vibrant colors are rarely seen, and life is not the better for it!
Decades ago when I bought the teal car from my list above, I was with my bf at the time. I told him before we got to the lot to watch the salesperson’s face when I said I wanted a manual transmision. Once we got there and started chatting with the salesperson I forgot what I’d said. Later, my bf whispered that he had seen the guy’s face. Yep, he looked shocked that that’s what I wanted. Especially since I was a “girl.”
Yellow, because we take the bus. I’ve not owned a car since 1988.
Previous car was driftwood pearl? = tan
Current car is magnetic grey metallic (darkish grey)
Brian
It’s a perpetuating cycle. You can only find a monochromatic car, so you buy that instead of an interesting color, so car manufacturers say “The public really loves monochromatic cars, let’s only make those available.” And we get where we are today: boring.
By the way, one reason I bought my car ('01 Insight) was because it wasn’t burgundy, not Dark Candy Apple, not dusty rose, not muted red, but RED!
As a tiny car (2-seater, less than a ton) amongst the Suburban Assault Vehicles on the road, it helps me not get run over.
Just remembered the car before that was “crimson cloak mica” (aka dark red)
Brian
White, purple (Deep Amethyst), or Old English White, depending on the vehicle.
Bronze-Gold-Beige metallic shades since 1999, still have one of them. Added a bright (“Caspian”) Blue in 2019 (because of being based in two distant locations for long periods, it was more efficient to keep the paid-off-for-6-years one in location A and get a more modest new one in location B) 'cause this one I could get at a good deal and was not *&^%$ white or black or grey.
I suppose it may have become associated with being “institutional” (forest service trucks, Army Jeeps… and yeah, Bell Telephone trucks). I would not mind more brands giving me a good Racing Green option.
Partly because the sales goal is “sell the car you have right there, and sell it right now”, at the same time as for the car maker it is seen as less cost-effective to make cars a-la-carte (“What, do we have to keep drums of Sweet Relish Metallic paint and pallets of 7 speed manual transmissions just sitting around, in case one hundred misfits scattered across North America want either?”). So instead it’s off-the-rack standardized, and do whatever it takes so the buyer drives off in one of those. The options there are, are themselves are only available in “package” bundles and there is no adding to a “stripped” base model – you want the V6 and GPS? Then you have to get no less than the VX trim level, and get a a package with the active cruise control, Bluetooth, fog lights and a different roof rack, but without the blackout kick panels.
We had the same car! But mine was a medium blue. Yeah, the 710 fwy was a real adventure…older freeway with narrower lanes and LOTS of trucks.
Those cars are so short that, when i’m feeling claustrophobic surrounded by 18-wheelers, I wonder if I could change lanes by going underneath them…
Maybe in an MG or a Miata… anyone tried it?
My daily drivers have been:
Red
Red
Blue
Red
Silver
White
White wasn’t really my first choice for my current vehicle, but it was a somewhat rare car and this one was the right trim for a good price.
I think I had the same thought a few times on the 710!
Maroon (I voted “red” in the poll). When I bought it, I specifically requested a car that wasn’t the boring white/silver/gray/black/beige that almost every other car seems to be.
White. Cooler (temperature-wise) and doesn’t look too bad when I don’t get around to washing it.
Previously:
red (that little Mazda 626 lasted 25 years)
white
white
very pale green (I loved my SAAB)
cream yellow (Porsche calls it Desert Beige)
bronze-ish
orange (my first, a Datsun 510)
We’ve talked, in this thread, about how most cars are less likely to have “interesting” colors now, compared to a few decades ago. I suspect that a factor in this is how new car sales have changed (at least, here in the U.S.) from how they used to work.
Going back to the 1970s (and maybe a bit later), most car dealers didn’t have a large inventory of new cars sitting on their lots. They’d have a few demo models, so you could do a test drive, but you’d then typically work with the dealer to order a car (with the specifications you wanted, including color) from the factory, and wait a few weeks to a few months for it to be delivered.
But, now, nearly all new car dealers carry a large inventory of cars on their lots, so that consumers can buy cars and take delivery right away. They order these cars from the factory, ordering a range of trim levels, and while it’s in the dealership’s best interests to have a range of cars for a shopper to choose from, they also don’t want to have cars tht are going to sit on the lot for months, because there’s something about that car that doesn’t appeal to people.
Unusual colors are appealing to some people, but probably not that many (particularly if we’re talking about sedans, SUVs, minivans, etc.), whereas while the neutral colors (black, white, gray, silver) aren’t going to get anyone super-excited, they also aren’t going to turn off many people. So, dealerships load up on those colors in their inventories, and tend to not order many cars with the more unusual colors.
Anecdote: my wife’s car is an electric blue Mazda CX-7, which we bought new from a dealer. When we bought it, it had been sitting on the dealership’s lot for over a year, and we got a pretty good deal on it, because the dealer wanted it off their lot; the salesman indicated that they had had a number of prospective buyers who had rejected the car entirely due to its color.
Same thing when I was buying a baby blue car. Not only did I get a great deal, between the time I signed the contract and when I was supposed to pick up the car, someone else came in and was dying to buy my car. They ended up offering me $300 to take an identical car in red. Which would have been my preferred color anyway. I was taking the baby blue one because it was priced lower than the other colors for the same trim level.