What conducts heat within a stationary car: the exterior color, or the interior color?

Question

Have you ever gotten in your car after it's spent a long day in the sun. Obviously, darker colors conduct more heat, but is this a result of the color of the car, or the color of seat's leather?

I live on the east coast, and it's not cold very often. Would a black car with tan leather interior, or a whtie car with black interior retain more heat?

Answer 1

the car is sealed, therefore with no airflow the car will accumulate heat over time . darker colours will absorb more light and generate more heat, but the effect is caused by the car being a sealed environment. Its called the greenhouse effect.

Answer 2

Well I'm not a scientist or an engineer but i'm guessing both factor in on the total heat of the car. Sun beaming down on a black top will make the heat inside greater than sun beaming down on a white car top, and a white interior would stay cooler than a black one...overall I would guess the main factor would be exterior color though because more sun hits the exterior directly than the interior

Answer 3

The darker outside when exposed to the heat of the sun tends to heat the whole car.

We have two of the same car model both with the same interior shade but a lighter and darker exterior. The darker exterior one is always worse if we leave the windows up in the summer.

Answer 4

A white car with tan leather interior will reduce the heat of the exterior and interior surfaces that are exposed to the sun, but you cannot cool down the inside compartment unless you get a ventilation fan that slots into the window and plugs into a cigarette lighter.

Answer 5

the color of the interior because the outside has nothing to do with the inside. they are completely independent of each other. if a car has a black exterior, the heat conducted to it will not be transferred to the inside.

Answer 6

The exterior color, if it is a hot day and you have a white car next to a black car, put you hand on both cars and you will feel how much cooler the white car feels, white relects the heat Black absorbs.

Answer 7

Stationary or not, interior or exterior is unimportant here. The property at work is denoted by what is known as the "albedo" of the surface [whereby pure white has an albedo of zero and black's albedo is 100/or if you like you may consider this as % from 0 to 100% of the spectrum that is wavelenths that light separates into. Color is indicative of just what part of the spectrum of light has undergone a light energy < to > heat energy conversion via absorbtion now visible as color. Remember what the breakdown of the visible light spectrum we find when a prism separates [refracts] it into yellows>then>reds>then blues and know that here white is none of these and color is some varying combiation which increases [pitch or shade] up to that pont where no light energy is reflected so you have black100% absorbtion [albedo of 100]. Now consider this when you think of a yellow car with light entering through windows showing it to have a green interior - the yellow is a lower albedo and will have the lower amount of heat energy [varying with its shade] on conversion. The green is some combination of both blues and yellows thus it will "be hotter". Remember that the copletely white car must still be found to be the same temperature or "energy" as that conducted to it by the mass and character of of the matter that it is in contact with now the "air" did not absorb light persay but it does absorb heat via the fact that it and the colored item are both matter but the air also will exibit movement and little capacity to retain heat energy because it transfers the heat energy into kinetic energy = movement enegy. so this energy is now COLD just as the heat was DARK(NO LIGHT) so the sun goes down in the desert (very dry air) at night and it cools off fast as air (washes past) contacts sand (yellow car) warms the air which ... moves fast until it stills and it stills until it almost stops [slowing outwards into "outer space"].
>aside<
Here I know an interesting example from memory which is that if you were to enlarge 1 hydrogen atom to the point it's only proton [the + mass in the middle] was the size of a basketball then the electron which is neg - would be the size of a "period" [ . ] orbiting this basketball 20 miles away! now that blows my mind!!!!! think about a 1 inch chunk of salt = one sodium atom bound to one of hydrogen [thats the building blocks it's made of >>>>just how much IS there realy of this chunk [( wouldn't want you to throw it at me )] that ISN'T than IS!!!!!! [all movent stops at "absolute zero" (this -273 Kelvin scale)
and this is the force at work in a black hole where you have [(that electron {[period]} resting stuck on that {[basketball]} proton)= tremendous gravity resulting in a virtual implosion = [everything is sucked together] All is matter and there is no "void" space.....gravity

So now that Iv'e typed my term paper I hope you find it helpful to see that when placed outside (@ 31 farenheit) a black crayon may melt in intense sunlight and even if you placed an aquarium packed full with snowballs beside the crayon they would stay ready for barrage if need be (snowball fight). but if you took the crayola and rubbed it on the aquariums outside the glass wouldn't be the surface but the thin crayon would and now you might as well go looking for some fish!

Oh almost forgot to remind you that the inside of the car retains the heat transfered to it as the sea of air is no sea but a pond and it's damned up inside so it is STAGNANT. You will still find the yellow cars body will get more than hot enough to melt your hershey bar most 60 deg sunny days

WHOOPS I FORGOT SALT IS SODIUM CHLORIDE !!!!!!! IT IS NOT FOUND THAT ONE HYDROGEN ATOM WILL BOND WITH ONE SODIUM AS HYDROGEN HAS A POSITIVE CHARGE AND SODIUM WILL ONLY GO FROM NEUTRAL TO POSITIVE BY SHARING ITS ELECTRON. I'M LEAVING THE MISTAKE AS I IS TIREDD OF RITING AND IT IS NOT IMPORTANT TO ANSWERING THE Q? [IF YOU IMAGINE THAT MY SALT WERE Na & H IT STILL EXPLAINS MY POINT.

Answer 8

Both the outside takes in the heat and the inside keeps the heat in because the green house effect says that rays of the sun and heat can only go through one sheet of glass at a time and can only go through one

Answer 9

It must be a factor of both. The outside is absorbing heat while the inside is of the car is also absorbing heat thus from the windows making the closed inside (where heat can't escape) hot*

Answer 10

its the result of green house effect.
the heat get in and can't leave because of the glass thats trapping it in.
and well since the heat its trapped inside, the seats material and colour plays a part in retaining it. ie fabric tend to be less hot compared to leather.