Posted on 03/25/2009 1:44:00 PM PDT by John Jorsett
If California regulators get their way, auto makers may soon be forced to rewrite a cliché from the Ford Model T era and start telling customers they can have any color they want as long as it isn’t black.
Some darker hues will be available in place of black, but right now they are indentified internally at paint suppliers with names such as “mud-puddle brown” and are truly ugly substitutes for today’s rich ebony hues.
So buy a black car now, because soon they won’t be available or will look so putrid you won’t want one. And that’s too bad, because paint suppliers say black is the second- or third-most popular vehicle color around the world.
The problem stems from a new “cool paints” initiative from the California Air Resources Board. CARB wants to mandate the phase-in of heat-reflecting paints on vehicle exteriors beginning with the ’12 model year, with all colors meeting a 20% reflectivity requirement by the ’16 model year.
Because about 17 other states tend to follow California’s regulatory lead, as many as 40% of the vehicles sold in the U.S. could be impacted by the proposed directive, suppliers say.
The measure is aimed at reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and improving fuel economy by keeping vehicles cooler on sunny days and decreasing the amount of time drivers use their air conditioners.
The rationale goes like this: Vehicle AC units sap engine power and hurt fuel economy. If vehicle paint and glass reflect more heat, car interiors will be cooler. That means drivers will use their AC units less, the compressors won’t have to work as hard and auto makers will be able to use smaller AC units in the future.
Reflective coatings and glazing (glass) already have proven to save energy when used on buildings, and this legislation is based on architectural standards.
On the surface, it’s not a bad idea, but fundamental issues reveal profoundly flawed legislation: Buildings and vehicles are manufactured and recycled differently, and no one buys a building based on its color.
Another troublesome fact: Heat-reflecting paints for black and other dark colors on vehicles have not been invented yet.
Paint suppliers also say heat-reflecting pigments that could be used in automotive applications contain toxic heavy metals that cause environmental damage and create health and safety issues during manufacturing and recycling.
At least one auto maker estimates the additional cost of using these paints at $100 per car, not counting required changes to assembly plant painting systems, which could be significant.
So far, auto makers are holding their tongues on this subject, but automotive paint suppliers, such as PPG Industries, are tearing their hair out.
“PPG obviously has a very large architectural division that paints lots of buildings,” says Connie Poulsen, global director-product management, at PPG. “The theory when (CARB) started this was you take the pigments used in buildings and put them into car paints. That’s a good theory; unfortunately it doesn’t quite work that easily. Believe me, we tested it right away.”
“Requirements for color palettes are different, the process is different, the pigments used are different,” Poulsen says, adding that new automotive paint systems also have to undergo two years of rigorous testing before being approved for production. That’s yet another item government bureaucrats never considered – along with 3-year product lead times.
Some California rules are problematic because they are utopian and unworkable. This legislation is flat-out lazy. It’s a cut-and-paste job from the state building code that ignores smarter, more-effective automotive solutions already in production or on the way, such as more efficient AC units and solar-powered ventilation fans that work automatically when a car is parked in the sun.
Struggling auto makers and suppliers must not be forced to waste their limited resources on the cool paints initiative, an ill-informed wasteful boondoggle that embarrasses the environmental movement.
Until the people do something about it, this crap will keep becoming more and more restrictive.
I wonder if Obama will have to use a fleet of white limousines when he visits California?
“The measure is aimed at reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and improving fuel economy by keeping vehicles cooler on sunny days and decreasing the amount of time drivers use their air conditioners.”
Didn’t the Mythbusters disprove this?
Because of the products my employer manufactures, I have to deal with the insanity of CARB’s Stalinist bureaucracy all the time.
I’m bumping this so I can send it to my boss tonight. I’m sure we’ll all have a good laugh about it tomorrow.
They ARE planning to regulate tire pressure. More info here: http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/tire-pressure/tire-pressure.htm
What idiots. I’d like to tell them my silver mini-van (about as reflective as you can get, due to the metallic paint) gets just as hot inside as my black Buick used to. The color of the car matters not.
This makes CA look normal:
Global warmism: “When we talk about drilling, the new thing we have to think about is the Arctic. There is a dangerous irony occurring. We are drilling, burning oil, sending CO2 up into the atmosphere, creating global warming — and it’s melting the Arctic making it possible for people to drill. Now there is this gold rush to start punching oil wells in a place we just desecrated because of global warming. That’s one place we have to get a new moratorium where there hasn’t been one before, because there has always been ice there before.” —Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA)
Lurker man, you're one of my favorites here, you know that, but I gotta tell you, I have no hope that the sheeple will ever rise up against the slave collars.
What a CROCK!
I will bet a million bucks that I could take a black car, and a white car side by side and bet that as soon as the Sun comes up, that BOTH cars will have their AC units running full tilt at the same time, just as long.
The difference in temperatures inside the vehicle as well as the outside air temperature are what determine the demand for A.C. The color will not effect that enough to matter. The greatest temperature gain/loss on ALL vehicles is through the windshield and glass. They are not insulated. Even a flat black paint job will not cause the A.C. to run any longer than in a chromed one, because they all have insulation in the ceiling, doors and floor coverings and lose or gain heat at the same rate.
What they really need to do is paint the roads and roofs of all buildings white, or have them chromed. I surely would not put it past them to try that, with enough Government money to pay for it.
This is absolute moronic stupidity! And the “studies” done on this, had to have been manipulated.
Understatement of the year, from my personal experience.
That is good enough for a Tag line.
Sure glad I got a camo bug defector on my black F-150, so they can’t see it!
So brown is the new black?
Isn’t this prejudicial?
I disagree: my white topped cars stay pretty cool, but I sure as H don’t think it should be law.
Dang...I thought the Dims trying to pass the ‘$5 a trick’ tax was bad in NV! LOL!
GW ping
Just wait until Jose De Vato (MS-13 East LA) gets told he can't paint his stolen Cadillac Escalade black because Leonard Pinth-Busybody of the California Air Resources Board deemed the color 'bad for the environment'.
Jose and his homeboys won't have any compunction against paying the Pinth-Busybody home a personal visit and burning it to the ground, thus increasing the Busybody Carbon Footprint to levels completely unacceptable to the rest of the members of the Board.
They'll then meet in Emergency Session to decide that the black Escalade is wholly carbon offset by the homes NOT burned to the ground.
L
It even has a handle for your minder!
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