The regulation calls out 19 vehicle functions which must have physical controls inside the vehicle, with additional requirements about size and usability of the buttons.
Those functions include:
Turn signals
Hazard lights
Horn
PRND gear shifter
Driver assist function, if present
Windshield wipers
Windshield defroster
Power windows
Emergency call system
Power off switch for EVs
I have a automatic temp control and haven’t needed to touch it in 7 years.
So far car brands I’ve owned where the temperature control hasn’t been set it and forget it: Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Subaru. Oh and I had a Chrysler too at one point. And a VW Passat, but I don’t want to talk about that.
Car brands I’ve owned where the automatic temperature control actually kept me comfortable all year round or even all day round at the exact same set temperature: Quite literally none.
In the winter in particular, I’ll usually set it to at least 24C to get started and when it’s actually warm I’ll set it to 20C, because my own frozen ass needs to be thawed. In the summer I want it around 16C usually.
So I’m wondering what car do you drive that has climate control so perfect you don’t have to touch it in 7 years? Bentley? Rolls-Royce? Because not a single normal person car seems to get it right.
Tip: Set FAN to auto, but temperature to the TARGET temperature you are comfortable in.
The way AC work is it just goes in either “go hotter” or “go colder”, then stops when the target temperature is reached. Setting your temperature to 18C don’t actually make it colder faster, it’s the fan speed that adjusts the intensity of how hard the AC works.
You can just set it to 20C right at the start and it will heat it up at more or less the same speed as if you set it to 24C
Obviously that’s what I do. It doesn’t actually work for me.
Even when the interior of the car is hot as hell from sitting in the sun, dropping the target temp a few degrees makes the fan blow harder. It doesn’t usually max out unless you set it to LO. Yes, automatic control works, but it doesn’t blow freezing air at you at full intensity unless you set it as low as possible, even if it’s super hot in the car.
I wouldn’t be sure that’s the only factor, since in a lot of cars made this century there’s a refrigerant pressure valve to replace the magnetic clutch. The auto HVAC system tells the compressor how hard to pump the refrigerant depending on how cold it wants evaporator side to get.
So I’ve yet to see a car that can intuit what I want the temperature curve over time to be as I get into the car vs when I’ve been driving for a while. There would likely need to be a thermal camera or something to figure that out, in addition to a machine learning algorithm of some sort.
Fun fact: When it was hot as fuck around summer solstice a few years ago (it’s a big celebration here in Estonia) and I drove to Latvia with a mate to get cheap booze, I set the AC to 12C (actually LO, but 12C was the smallest number shown before LO) for the entire trip and that was what I considered comfy that day, because I’d been out working all day and felt completely melted. If you’re a Fahrenheit user, that’s around 53F. I’ve told a couple of people that in relation to how cold I like my car in the summer and I’ve been asked “wtf kinda car lets you put the AC on 12 degrees”. The answer is W211 MB with Thermotronic 4 zone climate control - I was lucky to own that, the base 2 zone climate control in 90% of those cars only goes down to 16C. Felt like space technology for a 2003 car lol