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Development of new passenger-car climate control systems that contribute to improved comfort and decreased fuel consumption requires quantitative evaluations of thermal sensation and comfort. Therefore, a new evaluation method of the transient and non-uniform passenger-compartment thermal environment has been developed. Vehicle occupant's local thermal sensations are evaluated by using the local standard new effective temperature (SET*) that is calculated using a human thermoregulation model. The occupant's whole-body thermal comfort is then evaluated by local thermal sensation. The theory of the method and some example application results are introduced in this paper.

Vehicles have been more required to save energy against the background of the tendency of ecology. As the result of improving efficiency of internal combustion engines and adoption of electric power train, heat loss from engine coolant, which is used to heat the cabin, decreases and consequently additional energy may be consumed to maintain thermal comfort in the passenger compartment in winter. This paper is concerned with the humidity control system that realizes reduction of ventilation heat loss by controlling recirculation rate of the HVAC system by using highly accurate humidity sensor to evaluate risk of fogging on the windshield. As the results of the control, fuel consumption of hybrid vehicles decreases and maximum range of electric vehicles increases.