Here Comes the Heat…

The sudden arrival of summer in this writer’s neck of the woods had two beneficial impacts. First, I’m able to work shirtless and, secondly, I can be assured that the harsh sun and 90-plus degree temps will scrub the rona from my car’s interior just by leaving it parked outside all day. Helps lower the Lysol budget.

Of course, summer can be all too brief, and sometimes a person doesn’t have all day to wait for ambient heat to melt the lipid outer layer of your average coronavirus. Ford has a solution that, while not great for the environment, will at least bring peace of mind to law enforcement officers.

It seems that, given the abundance of Blue Oval SUVs serving in police roles these days, the automaker felt the need to create a self-cleaning mode via the vehicle’s HVAC system and a new bit of software.

Yes, thanks to Ford, previous-generation Police Interceptor Utility models can really cook. On Wednesday, the manufacturer announced the creation of a new setting that cranks up the heat in the vehicle’s cabin to 133 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes, eradicating 99 percent or more of viruses, even in hard-to-reach areas. It’ll also defrost those steaks.

Available “immediately” in 2013-2019 models sold in North America and overseas, the software can be activated even if the officer is in the vehicle, though you’d probably want to forgo that option in the interest of comfort.

From Ford:

Once activated, the vehicle’s powertrain and climate control systems work together automatically to elevate passenger compartment temperatures. The software warms up the engine to an elevated level, and both heat and fan settings operate on high. The software automatically monitors interior temperatures until the entire passenger compartment hits the optimal level, then that temperature is maintained for 15 minutes.

To research the effectiveness of this sanitization method, Ford worked closely with The Ohio State University to determine the temperature and time duration needed to help inactivate the COVID-19 virus.

After the 15 minutes is up, during which the vehicle locks its doors and turns on its flashers, the system vents the hot air and cranks the A/C, putting the vehicle back in business in a hurry. On 2016 and newer models, an officer can activate the system by pushing the cruise control buttons in a certain manner. Older models will require a technician plugging in to the vehicle’s diagnostics port to get the operation underway. This is a system you don’t want to be too easy to activate.

“You certainly don’t want it to be something that gets activated accidentally so it is a complicated enough cycle that you’d have to be paying attention to what you’re doing to, to get it to start,” Bill Gubing, Ford’s director of passenger vehicles and SUVs, told CNN.

Should the system activate with someone in the vehicle, any input from the occupant (such as moving the steering wheel) will shut the thing off.

Ford says large, well equipped police departments will be capable of installing the software themselves, while smaller outfits will need to tap a dealer service center. The system went on a trial shakedown cruise via several departments across the U.S. before its roll-out, though the automaker specifically mentions the New York City Police Department as asking for such a solution. The system can’t stop droplet ejection from an infected person’s mouth — and indeed this is the primary cause of coronavirus transmission — so the new self-cleaning system remains a nice-to-have, not a cure-all.

Ford claims it’s working on delivering the feature to other models.

[Images: Ford]