Modern darker-coloured Civics put more load on the A/C during the summer than lighter-coloured ones? Prove it.

 

Maybe he is referring to the dark blue seats. I could believe that it would take more A/C to cool a car with dark seats.

 

As an HVAC Controls engineer, I can tell you for certain that any dark colored (exterior) car will require more energy to cool in the summer (and less energy to heat in the winter, btw).

When we pick out our prototypes for evaluation, the ideal scenario would be to test black cars in Florida/Arizona and white cars in Canada, just to get the most extreme loads. Usually, we don't have the luxury of a choice though. Gray/silver is obviously an average of the two.

 

Sorry Spinner;

I have to agree with Rob on this one. Not only because it follows & complies with basic truth elements most of us have learned long ago... but also because some of us have actually tested this too.

For instance, my 06 is Silver and my wife's 07 is Magnetic Pearl (dark blue). Now what is interesting is the interior temp of each car with the windows up and the sun-shields on the front windshield. After several hours they were both baking ovens but the silver car was almost 6 degrees cooler. Sure not a lot of difference but still reproducible. We repeated this experiment another time at one of last years Hybrid Club meeting and as a result we decided to put this issue to rest for good.

Cheers;

MSantos

 

Thanks for the backup. Heck, I was stunned that anyone would question the fact that dark colors absorb heat and light ones reflect it. The same principle applies to clothing, the Earth, you name it. Physics 101, FCOL.

Back in '92 we had to have our home in Texas re-roofed after a bad hailstorm*. I took advantage of this misfortune to get white shingles vs. the old dark gray ones (and have the insurance pay for it!). The subsequent decrease in A/C usage each summer was very obvious. Four years ago we replaced the dark-shingled roof on our current home with a light beige metal roof. Again, summer A/C demand went down.

While a dark car should heat up better in winter, in practice it won't help much in high latitudes, thanks to the combination of low sun angle and shorter days.

(*- tennis ball to baseball size hail. Some places nearby reported softball size. )

 

Don't take my responses as an indignity. My approach is open-minded. The reason I'm skeptical of the effects of colour on the HCH-II is twofold: I made the transition from a little greenhouse on wheels (tinted glass roof) that had a white exterior to the HCH-II in the darkest colour available and my impression has been that this car is never too hot nor too cool inside; And, the green tinted windows are common to all of our cars, possibly more effective sun ray protection than other car designs, maybe negating some of the expectations. The other thing was that car exteriors are cooled by wind chill, not by the A/C... The interior is insulated... Thus, what does a car's exterior colour really have to do with anything? And any way, I thought the car's design and it's appeal to the buyer should trump what difference there would be in A/C response. Again, as far as I'm concerned, it works on this car and it works very well indeed.