As automobile giants grapple with efficient built-in air filter technology, car drivers and passengers continue to suffer from dangerous levels of air pollution higher than those of other commuters on the road.
“It's an irony. A car's engine has an air filter, fuel combustion has a separate air filter, but there is no efficient air filter for passengers traveling inside the vehicle,” Frank Hammes, president of IQAir, Swiss air filtration giant, told CGTN.
A recent study claimed that an hour a day stuck in traffic, common in most megacities, exposes drivers and passengers to pollution level similar to smoking 180 cigarettes a year.
King's College London and Camden Council in the British capital, in an experiment in 2014, calculated that car drivers and passengers are exposed to more than twice the amount of air pollution as pedestrians and almost eight times more than cyclists.
Road transport is contributing up to 30 percent of particulate emissions (PM) in European cities, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates. In OECD countries emissions go up to 50 percent – mostly due to diesel traffic making cars more prone to choking pollution.
Why is air pollution inside a car so high?
A car is continuously sucking in toxic gases from the natural environment and vehicles traveling ahead of it. Even worse, it also breathes in emissions from its tailpipe.
“This air pollution is brought in through the ventilation systems and trapped within the vehicles, resulting in higher concentration levels,” researchers said.
Pedestrians and cyclists walking along the street are exposed to a much lower level of pollution as the air was able to circulate freely around them.
In a bid to reduce vehicular emission, governments are trying to promote energy efficient public transport. However, a large number of cities are still not able to cope with the rising number of daily commuters.
Thus cars remain a preferred mode of transportation.
The challenge of developing an efficient filtration system
Since the invention of the car, air filters have remained a challenge for automobile manufacturers.
An efficient air purification system consumes energy at a high rate. A high pollution level also results in frequently clogging filters. "This translates into frequently servicing the car and low fuel efficiency, incurring a substantial cost to the automobile industry and car owners," Hammes said.
Technically, it has been found that the higher the fuel efficiency of a car, the more regressive is its air filtration system. Car air filtration system manufacturers explain that automobile climate control systems suck air through a high capacity filter and consume significant energy, lowering the fuel efficiency of vehicles.
A large number of European cars have filters that can remove pollens, “but not ultrafine particles and toxic gases that are extremely harmful to health,” Hammes added. According to IQAir, automobile giants are trying to resolve the issue but would take another five to 10 years to set things right. Recent reports suggest that the wildfires in Calfornia are testing the limits of automobile air filtration systems.
With average commute increasing globally, indoor automobile pollution is becoming a contentious issue to solve. On an average, a person in the U.S. spends 300 hours annually inside the car. Beijing residents spend around 52 minutes on the road to work each day, a 2013 study found.
“People think a car is a much-protected environment, but in reality it's not,” Hammes added. He suggests compact car air filtration systems are the only solution to combat toxic fumes inside the cars.
Last week, IQAir launched a car purifier priced nearly four times more than the brands like Phillips and Bosch. The company is investing in China to tap its growing automobile market.
The company says that the new purifiers not only controls PM 2.5 level but also absorbs chemical pollution emanating from dashboards and seats. The new filter capacity is nearly 10 to 20 times higher than that of other air purifiers available in the market, Hammes said.