Trust us!The interior of your car can get awfully hot when it is sitting in a parking lot under the noon day sun. There have been some cheap fixes to keep their car interiors cool from sunshades to cooling fans that work when the car is off and parked.
The State of California is trying to come up with its own remedy — the “cool cars” rule. The California Air Resources Board is in the process of developing a standard that requires automakers to put a special glaze over the windows of the car. Sounds simple enough.
The problem is that the material that helps to make up the glaze can affect the performance of cellular phones and degrade the signals from ankle monitoring bracelets warned by convicted felons.
Needless to say, the California Police Chiefs Association, the California State Sheriffs Association, and others are screaming. Besides the bracelets above, California toll booth collectors worry that the glaze could make it impossible to use the “EZ Pass” Systems that allow cars equipped with a special device to just drive through the toll booth.
The California Air Resources Board has decided to do a little tweaking before accepting the regulations. They will require that 45 percent of the sun’s energy be blocked from entering the interior of a car by 2014 and 60 percent by 2016. The initial cost of the rule will be $111 over the life of the vehicle.
The regulations take effect in 2012 and will be phased in over three years. The 2016 standard will add $250 to the price of a vehicle. The State of California claims it will take five to 12 years for consumers to get a return on the cost through reduced gasoline use.
via Detroit News
Of course what this article neglects to mention is that there is no engineering basis for this hysteria. This technology has been in use in around the world for more than 20 years. Tens of millions of cars are on the road in the United States TODAY with this technology installed and more than 100 million have been placed on the roads in Europe over the last 15 years.
In addition to OEM equipped glass the majority of professional quality aftermarket tinting uses the same technology. You may have noticed that a number of public safety (police) vehicles use aftermarket tinting and their telecommunications and GPS systems seem to work.