Who put the first air conditioner in a car?

Air conditioning comes standard on almost every car sold in the U.S. today. Even if you are driving around sweating in a sweltering hot car, it is usually not because the vehicle doesn&#;t have A/C &#; it&#;s because the A/C it has is broken.

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Yet for much of the history of the automobile, air conditioning was either a cutting-edge luxury or a sci-fi writer&#;s dream. The automotive air conditioners of today are the result of a century&#;s worth of invention and refinement.

To give an idea of how far we&#;ve come, let&#;s take a look back at the history and science of keeping cool in cars.

• Three-wheeled automobiles are patented in the late s with no A/C to speak of
• The retro &#;car cooler&#; trends in the s, lowering air temperature by water evaporation in low humidity
• By , more than 50 percent of Americans have auto A/C installed

The Early History of Auto A/C: s &#; s

&#; The first patent for a production automobile is issued. The vehicle lacks many things you&#;d expect on a car today &#; it has no windshield, roof, doors, steering wheel, gas pedal, or brake pedal, and has only three wheels. Needless to say, it also has no A/C.

&#; A Packard Model F nicknamed &#;Old Pacific&#; becomes only the second car to drive coast-to-coast &#; a two-month trip at that time. Though cars still lack any kind of enclosed cabin, the driver set up a large umbrella to provide shade and make hot desert crossings at least a little cooler.

&#; The Kool Kooshion seat cover uses small springs to hold drivers about a half-inch above the car seat, allowing air to circulate underneath them and behind their backs. It basically allows the sweat on your back to evaporate and help keep you cool. In fact, the Kool Kooshion is still sold today at major retailers.

&#; At this point, most cars are now enclosed. The Knapp Limo-Sedan Fan is a small electric fan that can be added to the inside of a car. Such fans still don&#;t cool the air, though &#; they just create a breeze and help evaporate sweat.

&#; The &#;car cooler&#; uses the evaporation of water (rather than your own sweat) to cool air, which is then blown in through the open passenger-side window. Though it&#;s the first item to actually lower the air temperature, it only works in areas with very low humidity &#; and it looks like you have a vacuum cleaner strapped to the side of your car.

&#; Packard becomes the first car manufacturer to offer air conditioning as an option. The cooling system is located in the trunk, rather than in the dash, and you have to manually install or remove the drive belt from the A/C compressor to turn the system on or off.

The option costs $274 at a time when the average yearly income is $1,368. That, plus the start of World War II, causes the option to be short-lived.

&#; Eight years after the end of the war, A/C finally returns to the automotive industry. Several manufacturers offer A/C as an option, all of them being rear-mounted systems not much different from what Packard used in .

&#; Pontiac and Nash become the first two companies to fit the A/C system in the front of their cars, instead of in the trunk. The Nash system combines the heater and air conditioner into one in-dash system, establishing the standard that most all cars have followed since.

The Last 60 years: s &#; Today

&#; Cadillac introduces Comfort Control. For the first time, drivers can set a preferred temperature, and the system will automatically adjust the A/C or heater output to keep the car interior at that temperature.

&#; The AMC Ambassador becomes the first car to include A/C as standard equipment, rather than an added option.

&#; Over half of all American cars now have A/C.

&#; Interdynamics (IDQ) is founded and creates the first do-it-yourself automotive A/C kits.

&#; Due to concerns about depletion of the ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol is signed, providing a plan for the phase-out of the R-12 refrigerant used in most A/C systems.

&#; All new automotive A/C systems are required to run on R-134a refrigerant, rather than R-12.

&#; IDQ launches all-in-one DIY solutions for repairing auto A/C systems. A single can recharges the system with R-134a, seals leaks, eliminates corrosive moisture, and replaces lost lubricant &#; all in about 10 minutes, with no special tools required.

Today &#; Though there are discussions about potential new refrigerants that could be used in the future, car A/C systems have stayed mostly the same over the past two decades.

More than a million people have used our all-in-one recharge kits to repair their auto A/C systems, collectively saving hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Summer brings with it a host of delightful sensations &#; the sun&#;s warmth on your skin, the smell of the ocean air, and the sight of early-morning sunrises and late-evening sunsets. It also gives rise to that dreaded, uncomfortable feeling every motorist has experienced: opening your car door in the middle of a hot day only to be keeled over by the wave of heat emanating from the vehicle&#;s interior.

The truth is, cars get hot. Dangerously hot, actually. Fortunately, nearly every American car is equipped with standard air conditioning. But this wasn&#;t always the case. Modern air conditioning was invented in the early s and it took several more decades to devise a way to incorporate it into an automobile.

So, how did we go from relying on open rooftops and rolled-down windows to being able to turn our car into an icebox with just the press of a button? The history of air conditioning in cars has seen quite the evolution.

Early Automotive Cooling Systems

Although air conditioning in cars was still years away, the earliest vehicles had a distinctive advantage to beating the heat: they were open air. The earliest Model T&#;s, for example, had no doors and a collapsible hood. Drivers were likely more concerned about cold weather.

But closed-body vehicles quickly followed. For drivers and passengers to cool down in these cars, windows were rolled down while vents under the dashboard circulated air. However, these ventilation systems were crude and didn&#;t keep dirt, dust, pollen or insects from getting inside the vehicle.

Other primitive cooling devices included the Knapp Limo-Sedan Fan, a small electric fan mounted to the interior of a car, and the car cooler. This latter device was attached to roof of the car and used water evaporation to deliver cool air through an open window. It was known as the first product to lower a car&#;s cabin temperature. A car cooler could &#;reduce the inside temperature of the car as much as 15 to 20 degrees,&#; according to a Popular Mechanics article published at the time.

Air Conditioning in Cars Arrives

The s was a seminal time in the history of automotive air conditioning. To kick-start the decade, Packard became the first automaker to offer factory-installed air conditioning. It was followed closely by Cadillac, which introduced the feature in its models.

As one could imagine, these early cooling systems were far from perfect. The unit was located in the trunk of the vehicle, forcing the driver to get out of the car and manually install or remove the drive belt from the compressor to turn the air conditioning on and off. Secondly, the system could only recirculate air already in the cabin, not incorporate outside air. When a smoker was onboard, the air quickly become unbearable. Furthermore, the condensed water running overhead was known to drip down on passengers. If that wasn&#;t enough, these first systems had no control settings &#; they were either on or off.

Air conditioning, and auto manufacturing in general, took a back seat for much of the remaining decade as the country devoted its efforts to World War II.

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The Post-War Rise in Air Conditioning

Euphoria was not the only thing gripping the country after the war: Waves of cool air started circulating coast to coast as air conditioning in cars became an option for most motorists. In , General Motors, Chrysler and Packard all introduced new air conditioning systems. Three years later, every major American carmaker offered air conditioning as an option. An estimated 3,000 cars were equipped with air conditioning before the onset of World War II, according to automotive company Hagerty. By the end of the s, that number had skyrocketed to 1 million.

The technology of these cooling units continued to improve as well. In , General Motor&#;s Harrison Radiator Division devised a revolutionary system that could fit into a car&#;s engine compartment. About a decade later, Cadillac made a breakthrough of its own with the invention of comfort control. The system, which kept the cabin at a temperature set by the driver, worked by channeling some of the cold air to the heater core, thus mixing hot and cold air to keep the temperature steady. These enhancements only further popularized the use of air conditioning in cars. At the culmination of the s, more than half of all new automobiles were equipped with air conditioning units.

Environmental Concerns

The s brought with it a brand new problem for carmakers when it came to air conditioning units. Scientists had discovered that compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were depleting the earth&#;s ozone layer. Automotive air conditioners used a CFC refrigerant called R12, better known as Freon. As the decade wore on, and the number of air conditioners in cars increased, it became increasingly clear that a new option needed to be developed.

After years of testing, a suitable replacement was found in the refrigerant R-134a. In , the U.S. government signed the Montreal Compact, which, in part, required car manufacturers to make the switch in coolants by .

Modern Automotive Air Conditioning

Nowadays, you&#;ll be hard pressed to find a vehicle on the market without air conditioning: Only 1% of passenger cars don&#;t offer it, according to Car and Driver magazine.

As you&#;d expect, these modern systems are highly advanced, with features such as dual and rear climate control, which allow separate temperature controls for the driver and passengers.

Automotive air conditioning is not without its drawbacks, however. Most notably is its effect on fuel efficiency. Air conditioning can reduce a conventional vehicle&#;s fuel economy by more than 25%, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That number could be even greater in hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.

Some simple tips to limit the reduction in fuel efficacy include using air conditioning only at highway speeds, not idling with the air conditioner running, and opening the windows before driving to let hot air out of the cabin before turning on the air conditioning.

Love learning about cars? Head to our auto history page.

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