Which Color Car Will You Consume Less Fuel?

Vehicle color, especially Differences between light and dark color options, It has a much bigger impact on fuel consumption than we think. Even if a direct effect is not mentioned, not ignoring this indirect effect can save you a lot of money.

You, like many of us, may not have pursued this problem. But your car colorIt plays a bigger role than you think in saving fuel during your journeys under sunny weather. But how?

How does car color affect fuel consumption?

Fuel consumption depends on the color of the vehicle, Perhaps when heard, it may not provide a logical context for many people. Because in general, the color of the vehicle seems to have nothing to do with the fuel of the vehicle, since it is an aesthetic element. However, research on this subject has found that the colors of vehicles indirectly affect fuel consumption.

For example, Choosing a white car instead of blackThis means gaining a range of 20 kilometers with one tank of fuel. If you drive a vehicle with a large surface area, this amount of savings can increase even more.

When choosing vehicle color, you can now choose not only according to your taste, but also according to fuel economy.

You may guess the reason for this: sunlight. Even in the clothes we wear daily, the reflection of sunlight makes a huge difference in terms of feeling cold and cooling down. The same logic actually applies to vehicles. A dark colored vehicle is exposed to more sunlight than a light colored vehicle. That’s why, if you’ve noticed, it gets hot as hell inside black cars in the summer months.

Although dark colored vehicles reflect 5% of the sun’s rays This rate goes up to 60% in light colored ones. which is a very serious rate!

“So, what does temperature and fuel have to do with it?” Even if you say…

The outside temperature of the car naturally It also affects the internal temperature of the engine block. Tests showed that dark-colored vehicles needed to use 13% more air conditioning to reflect the same temperature values. So we can think of it as the exterior of our houses or our clothes.

temperature from outside, Because it makes the engine compartment hotter Naturally, it has an indirect effect on fuel consumption.

A study on this subject was conducted by researchers in Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies department.

According to this study published in the journal Applied Energy Vehicles painted with reflective coatings stay cooler in the sun It was found that it can be ventilated more easily to reach a comfortable temperature.

The person who carried out the study Ronnen Levinson, “Solar reflective paints, which can reduce the air temperature inside a vehicle when parked in a sunny parking lot, can increase the vehicle’s fuel economy by allowing the manufacturer to install an air conditioner that is smaller and draws less power from the engine.” says.

As we already know white, silver and other light colors are cool colors that reflect about 60% of sunlight. However, dark cool colors can also keep you cooler as an exception.

In the study, they parked two identical model Honda Civics on loan from the California General Services department in a parking lot.

One of the vehicles was gray and the other was black. The exterior coating of the black and gray vehicles had a solar reflectance of 0.05 and 0.58, respectively. During a sunny day, the vehicles were placed in the sun in similar cycles. Each cycle began with a one-hour wait with the air conditioning turned off, followed by a half-hour cooling period with the air conditioning at maximum.

The researchers continuously measured the roof, ceiling, dashboard, windshield, seat, door, air intake and cabin air temperatures in each vehicle, as well as in the parking lot. They also monitored outdoor weather conditions. At the peak of the holding phases of the test, the roof of the gray vehicle was about 25°C cooler than the roof of the black vehicle.

Using the vehicle simulation called Advisor, the team also determined the effect of weather condition on vehicle fuel consumption and pollutant emissions.

Among these There was an urban loop, a highway loop, a temporary driving loop with increasing and decreasing speed. Combining these simulations with the thermal model’s output, they found that solar-reflective automobile paint saves potential energy for miniaturizing air conditioning.

The results were surprising. Replacing black paint on a vehicle with a cooler colored paint was found to increase fuel economy by 0.24 mpg (1.1%). This means reducing the power drawn from the engine resulting from the use of less air conditioning.

This change also reduces carbon dioxide emissions while decreasing by 1.1% other automobile emissions, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons It will reduce by approximately 0.5%.

So which color consumes less fuel?

For this, white, grey, yellow, orange, red, green, blue, purple, brown and black It is possible to make a ranking as follows.

As you can see, the colors in cars have been something that many of us have chosen solely based on our aesthetic taste. However, now choosing lighter colors instead of black will reduce fuel economy. increased by almost 2% we have seen. Maybe we should reconsider the importance of color when buying a vehicle. Because sometimes, small details can turn into big savings.

Our other content related to automobiles: