This is what you need to know before you breathe in that mysterious scent
As soon as you hear “new car smell,” you can feel it in your nostrils. Love it or loathe it, that distinctive odor is instantly recognizable and even intriguing. You can’t quite place what the scent is, but it smells weirdly good … until it gives you a headache. So what is “new car smell,” anyway—and why do some of us find it so appealing?
As a health reporter who is about to trade in her leased Acura SUV for a brand-new model, I wanted to find out just what we’re smelling. I reached out to two experts and peppered them with questions: How do manufacturers create the new car smell? Is it from leather or pleather seats? Are there toxins involved? And why do new cars smell so good?
Read on for answers to those questions and more. With the experts’ help, I’m breaking down what “new car smell” is, how long it lasts, whether it’s unhealthy and why some of us just can’t get enough of it.
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What is “new car smell,” exactly?
That new car scent is 50-150 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs). In other words, you’re smelling a chemical cocktail.
“New car smell is the outgassing of chemicals used in the manufacturing of the car’s interior, such as car seats, fabric, cushions and fresh plastics,” explains Shahir Masri, ScD, associate specialist in air pollution exposure assessment and epidemiology at the University of California Irvine’s Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health.
VOCs aren’t just in your new Mini or minivan, either. They’re everywhere: in your home, office, paints, air fresheners, yoga mats, household cleaners and new carpeting and furniture.
These chemicals contribute to unhealthy indoor air and can have a range of short- and longer-term health effects, including headaches, eye irritation, respiratory problems, nausea, central nervous problems and kidney and liver damage, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Some VOCs, such as benzene, are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans.
Which VOCs are present in new cars?
There may be dozens of VOCs in your brand-new auto, but they’re not all in the same concentrations. One study found that 20% of the VOCs in cars make up 80% of the total VOC load. Here are some of the most common VOCs mucking up the air in your car:
- Formaldehyde: This comes from glues, fabrics and foam. It’s highest in the early weeks of owning a new car, spikes with heat and declines over a period of months. Health worries include chronic respiratory effects, though it can contribute to cancer.
- Toluene: This is in the car’s plastics, paints and adhesives. It declines a lot with time and varies day to day based on temperature and humidity. Toluene can cause acute central nervous problems and eye irritation.
- Benzene: This comes from synthetic rubbers, dashboards and seat foam. It’s not as concentrated in new cars as toluene is, and it declines steeply in the first three months, which is key because it’s a human carcinogen.
- Acrylonitrile: This is found in new car panels, interior trim panels and seat belt components. “It’s been identified as a chronic risk driver in a 2024 study,” says chemist Chris DeArmitt, PhD, founder of the Plastics Research Council.
- PFAS: These SVOCs are in treated fabrics, carpets, foam seat cushions and antifog and antismudge coatings on glass and touch screens. PFAS are called “forever chemicals” for a reason: They stick around and can settle in dust. We’re exposed when we accidentally eat, inhale or pick up the dust on our skin. PFAS can accumulate in your blood and liver, raise your LDL (aka “bad”) cholesterol levels and elevate your liver enzymes. They’ve been linked to certain forms of cancer too.
- Styrene: This VOC comes from dashboards, instrument panels, center consoles and interior trim. According to DeArmitt, styrene levels in new car models tend to be high at first, then they drop with ventilation. Styrene can cause respiratory and central nervous system effects, as well as headaches and other central nervous system complaints.
Are these VOCs bad for you?
First, the good news: “VOC amounts are much lower than they were in the past,” says DeArmitt. Now on to the truth bomb: It’s not ideal to have new-car chemicals off-gassing into a small, enclosed space the size of a powder room.
“Some of these VOCs and SVOCs can be harmful to health and have been associated with cancer,” Masri notes. They may be more dangerous to small children because they weigh less, which means any VOCs they breathe in are more concentrated in them.
Two big offenders in car interiors are formaldehyde and acrylonitrile, which are “very toxic” chemical compounds and have been found at levels above the permitted limits for very new cars, says DeArmitt. In fact, a 2023 study by researchers from Harvard and Beijing Institute of Technology found formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen, at levels 34.9% higher than permitted by Chinese safety standards and acetaldehyde, a probable human carcinogen, at levels 60.5% higher than safety standards.
Interestingly enough, you can’t use your nose to sniff out the most dangerous VOCs. “Some of the chemicals that cause the odor are not necessarily the same ones that cause the more adverse health effects,” Masri says. While formaldehyde has a strong chemical smell, other hazardous car interior compounds don’t. Take, for instance, PFAS.
A 2025 European study examined dust samples from cars manufactured between 1996 and 2021, and found flame retardants and PFAS in all the samples tested. “PFAS have been identified as notorious carcinogens and have been found in car interiors, though they are not responsible for the ‘new car’ smell,” Masri adds.
Do all cars have this smell?
You would think that future-thinking car makers would be cranking out eco-friendly electric and hybrid vehicles with fewer VOCs, but there’s not much evidence to back this up. One 2024 study discovered that the levels of one type of flame retardant found in seat foam were significantly lower in electric compared with gasoline vehicles, but more research needs to be done.
How long does the new car smell stick around?
While that new vehicle odor begins to dissipate as soon as the car rolls out of the factory, concentrations of these VOCs can still remain high for months, if not longer, Masri says.
These nasty pollutants are particularly elevated in the first month, according to the 2024 study. “Levels of in-cabin VOCs for the new car were found to be escalated for the first month after delivery from the manufacturer, with concentrations tending to decline to below the respective detection limits during the monitoring period,” DeArmitt notes.
Is there any way to get rid of the new car smell faster?
Once you know what “new car smell” is, you probably want to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Fortunately, there are tricks to removing that new auto odor—and the chemicals floating around—faster. But if you really want to slash your toxin load, consider buying a preowned vehicle or the previous year’s model, as Masri recently did.
“When I bought a car last year, this is one of the reasons I chose not to buy a brand-new one but rather one that was a couple of years old,” Masri says. “My car thankfully did not have the ‘new car’ smell, which I cannot stand, as I get headaches.”
Going with a car that already has some ticks on the odometer “allows important time for the VOCs to dissipate,” he says, “including those that cause odor but also those that you may not even smell but can be harmful.”
Roll down the windows
Encourage ventilation by keeping the windows down when you drive, Masri advises. You can also crack the windows slightly when your car is parked if you have a garage. “This will help facilitate more VOC transport out of your car during night and nondriving periods,” he says.
Time your purchase
“If you buy a car in the summer, the hot weather will help speed up the process of the chemicals volatilizing and leaving the car, especially if you park it in the sun with the windows partially down,” Masri explains.
Let it off-gas before driving with precious cargo
If you have a baby or young kids, let your new car off-gas for at least a month before transporting them in it. Then, keep the windows cracked to further reduce exposure.
Turn on a little-used setting
Consider hitting the fresh air setting to pull in outdoor air. This will help “dilute the smell rather than recirculating air from within the cabin,” DeArmitt says.
Together, these small steps can make a real difference in reducing your toxin load—and getting you on the road (sans headache) as soon as possible.
Why do some people like the new car smell?
The phenomenon is both psychological and biological.
Yup, there’s a physiological reason for this olfactory attraction. Though our scent preferences are highly individual, says DeArmitt, “some new car chemicals, esters, have odors that resemble fruits, so that may be a part of it.”
It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint: We are programmed to gravitate toward sweet smells because they guide us to the freshest fruit, which helps us survive.
Now, there’s just one final mystery to clear up: Why do people like this chemical smell in a new car—but not in cleaning products or a new shower curtain? If it were solely driven by our evolutionary attraction to fruitlike chemicals, we’d enjoy those too … yet we don’t. After all, the distinctive scent is so popular, you can now buy “new car smell” candles, home fragrances and car air fresheners. But you won’t find “new carpet smell” candles.
Masri has a theory, and it comes at the question from a psychological angle: “I think it’s because buying a new car is an exciting accomplishment for many people, and so they associate the smell with excitement, success and accomplishment,” he says. “Just my guess!”
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Sources:
- Shahir Masri, ScD, associate specialist in air pollution exposure assessment and epidemiology at the UC Irvine Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health; email interview, Oct. 9, 2025
- Chris DeArmitt, PhD, founder and president of the Plastics Research Council; email interview; Oct. 7, 2025
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: “Volatile Organic Compounds’ Impact on Indoor Air Quality”
- Toxics: “Acute and Chronic Health Risk Assessment for Automobile Users Due to Inhalation Exposure to Volatile Organic Compounds and Carbonyl Compounds”
- Cell Reports Physical Science: “Observation, prediction, and risk assessment of volatile organic compounds in a vehicle cabin environment”
- Environmental Monitoring and Assessment: “High levels of flame retardants in vehicle dust indicate ongoing use of brominated and organophosphate flame retardants in vehicle interiors”
- Indoor Air: “Smells like new car or rather like an old carriage? – Resolution of the decay behavior of odorants in vehicle cabins during usage”
- Environmental Science and Pollution Research: “VOC data-driven evaluation of vehicle cabin odor: from ANN to CNN-BiLSTM”
- Environmental Science and Technology: “Flame Retardant Exposure in Vehicles Is Influenced by Use in Seat Foam and Temperature”
