A comfortable interior can also impact a car’s perceived value and increase customer satisfaction. As such, Saint-Gobain Sekurit aims to provide the best technologies and solutions to make each drive as enjoyable as possible
Passenger comfort in a car is perhaps the most important aspect that positively affects the overall driving experience and contributes to a safe and enjoyable ride. Features such as adequate legroom, adjustable seats, and thermal comfort and infotainment systems can greatly enhance comfort and help reduce driver fatigue. In addition, a comfortable interior can also impact a car’s perceived value and increase customer satisfaction. In-cabin temperature extremes can negatively impact passenger comfort and the driving experience.
Thermal comfort refers to the satisfactory in-cabin temperature in a passenger car. To ensure thermal comfort, passenger cars often come equipped with features such as air-conditioning, heating systems and ventilation systems. These systems help regulate the temperature and air quality in the cabin to create a comfortable environment for the passengers. Maintaining the proper temperature and air quality in a car also helps reduce driver fatigue and improve overall safety on the road.
Adverse parking conditions and driving during hot summers pose greater challenges to maintaining cabin comfort. High cabin temperatures, hot upholsteries and the dashboard are often the cause for discomfort. Excessive usage of air-conditioning also has a negative impact on mileage, air quality and ventilation. Saint-Gobain Sekurit’s innovative thermal control glazing solutions strive to ‘make every drive a great experience’. The company’s solutions, designed for Indian road conditions, help reduce the amount of heat entering the cabin, thus resulting in enhanced passenger comfort.
SGS THERMOCONTROL® Absorbing
Saint-Gobain Sekurit offers a superior solution to manage heat intake inside a car cabin by absorbing direct heat from the sun. A comfortable temperature is achieved within the cabin by choosing the right combination of glass in the front laminated windshield and specific infra-red cutting side door glass. The use of special glass absorbs the infrared wavelength of the direct solar energy, resulting in a higher cabin comfort. The other cause of discomfort is the heat build-up inside the cabin, caused when entering a vehicle that is parked under the sun for a considerable time. Standard glass lets in light but traps the heat inside the car. This causes the car interior to heat up, similar to a greenhouse effect.
SGS THERMOCONTROL® Absorbing glass addresses this issue and provides superior comfort by allowing less heat build-up inside the cabin. Studies conducted by Saint-Gobain Research in India clearly prove that the right combination of heat energy absorbing glass can improve mileage of the car by around 15% due to reduced AC usage. Research and development engineers in India have made a study, both qualitative and quantitative, on thermal comfort comparison at vehicle level in Indian conditions to demonstrate a significant improvement in cabin comfort for vehicles equipped with thermal comfort glass when compared with standard glass. In addition to improving thermal comfort, the load on the HVAC system and in turn battery energy consumption is reduced by selecting the appropriate thermal comfort glazing set for the vehicle. Moreover, the effect of cutting heat not only addresses passenger comfort and mileage but also improves the life of the car upholstery.
InSHADE
InSHADE is one of the latest launches from Saint-Gobain Sekurit India for the domestic market. The product innovation is the result of extensive research on thermal comfort in passenger vehicles. InSHADE is available for side door glasses of a car. It not only provides the best thermal comfort but also enhances the vehicle’s aesthetic appeal, thus differentiating the glazing from rest of the products available in the market.
SGS THERMOCONTROL® Reflecting
The most superior thermal comfort solution offered by Saint-Gobain Sekurit is also the most innovative thermal reflective solutions in automotive glazing. By reflecting the direct heat energy from the sun, the heat intake in the cabin is significantly reduced for the vehicle, especially when parked. The reflection of heat is achieved by a special coating on the glass that reflects more than 60% of the direct heat, resulting in best thermal comfort for the occupants. SGS Coolcoat®, one of the products with reflective technology, offers superior thermal comfort.
During hot summer days, SGS CoolCoat® blocks a big proportion of the sun’s infrared rays to ensure a more comfortable cabin temperature when compared with standard glass. Especially after parking, the heat build-up due to the greenhouse effect is highly controlled. Ensuring a lower cabin temperature reduces AC usage, resulting in AC fuel savings of up to 30% while also lowering CO² emissions. The cabin also reaches comfortable temperature levels much faster. SGS ClimaCoat® is an all-year-round solution with several different functions in one product.
In addition to a superior heat-cut capability it also gives a fantastic heat-able solution at the push of a button, without impacting the passenger’s view. SGS ClimaCoat® delivers its superior benefits through an invisible conductive metallic coating, which is applied on the inner side of a laminated piece of glass. In winter, SGS ClimaCoat® offers a transparent and unnoticeable solution that does away with the unpleasant need for ice-scraping and de-misting of your car. In just a few minutes, the windscreen is ice-free or mist-free at the push of a button.
SGS ClimaCoat® reduces the number of AC system vents required, allowing OEMs to place a heads-up display (HUD) system into the instrument panel instead. Normally, the AC system vents are necessary to sufficiently de-fog and de-ice the windscreen, which makes integrating an HUD system quite difficult for OEMs. SGS ClimaCoat® is widely preferred in electric vehicles because of its excellent thermal properties that drastically reduce the energy needed for the AC system vents. It even leads to a significant weight reduction for the total car which means that electric cars using SGS ClimaCoat® have a wider driving range than cars with a regular AC system.
