hmm.. remote A/C and an auto vent funtion vs opening all the windows. 1st... there's security. you can be comfortable vending your car anywhere.. it's locked, and still secure. 2nd.. it's all outside air.. at least with remote A/C or solar vent, you get outside air.. but not direct sunlight... you do understand that if you open all the windows, the direct sun is a bit hotter since your are no longer blocking rays with the window tints.... just seems so Duh to me it's not really funny.
?? You would not open the windows until you are walking right up to the car. There is no security problem. Heat comes in through the glass, but doesn't go out (that's the greeenhouse effect). A sunshade for the windshield can help somewhat, but that's a hassle. What autovent function does the remote a/c have? How is it going to cool the interior when it's full of 140 degree air?
hmm.. a fan system that bring in outside air.. or cracked windows... what do YOU thinks works better. Guess what?.. if that green house effect warms up your car.. guess what having direct sunlight inside is going to feel like. i've owned a cadillac in the past.. i know what stupid windows can do. the lexus had them too. I would much prefer to use remote A/C or solar vent
You are not understanding. The factory window tint isn't enough to prevent the car from heating up in the sun. The car will get hotter with the windows closed. The temperature inside the car with closed windows will be hotter than the outside temp. When you open the windows for a few seconds before stepping inside, much of the extra hot air will escape and the car interior will cool down to closer to outside temp. It is not about leaving the windows constantly open. The solar moonroof system probably is good at keeping the car interior cooler since that does actually have a system to exhaust the hot air and make the interior temp closer to outside temp, but I haven't seen anything saying the remote a/c has a system to force much or any of the hot air out. A/C isn't effective cooling for a long time when the interior temp is 130+ degrees. How are you going to activate the remote a/c in a car baking in a shopping mall parking lot long enough for it to make any difference? It's not as if you can activate it 15 minutes before you reach the car. The solar roof is incredibly expensive especially once you add mandatory options like nav that you may not want. Remote windows may not work as well as the solar roof, but it does help for only a few dollars instead of thousands of dollars of extra cost.
that was a rather rude reply for someone who either did not understand the question or is just plain wrong :tsk:
I thought the hot air will continue to vent when the remote A/C is activated. Ken posted this before. I think it sums it up. Note that the temps are in deg C. They are 176 to 113 deg F. The overall difference is 63 deg F. It looks like the solar panel vent brings down ~30 deg F while the remote A/C brings down ~33 deg F.
Wow.... Are you seriously calling someone names over a auto A/C vs a window roll down system? Lame. Anyways, back to the grown ups. I'm not saying anything about the solar fan or the remote A/C, obviously I have never used either I am just saying that the windows are a nice feature that I find useful. Has anyone who has a 2010 held the unlock button on the fob down? It might have it...
I'm sure the remote a/c will work after awhile, but after how many minutes? If it's 95 degrees outside and 130 degrees inside, how long would it take for it to at least cool the temperature down to 95 or less? I would be surprised if much cooling would happen in the time it takes to walk from the range of the remote controls reach to the car. I see how the solar roof would work because the solar-powered fans would be constantly circulating the air while the car sat in the sun. I would like to think and "hope" that the remote a/c would have something that can very quickly exhaust all the hot air inside to the outside without opening windows, but I haven't seen anyone post any facts on this. To make the a/c work best in a car that has been sitting in the sun, you are supposed to open the windows, turn on the a/c, drive off and when you start feeling cool air coming from the vents, close the windows then. That gives you time to get most of the hotter inside air out of the car. I don't see how it could work as well in a car that's sitting stationary in the sun with all windows closed.
Keep this civil and polite folks, I had to edit 5 posts to remove insulting comments and quotations of insulting comments.
The solar roof option and the remote a/c option are not the same thing and they don't go together. I don't understand your response or where you're getting the information.
As of now, you can only get both together. If you get the solar roof option, you also get a remote with A/C button.
Started a thread on this topic yesterday: (still not clear if you can buy with AC button for all Prius models) Does accessorie remote start and stop ICE and AC
Let me apologize in advance for throwing some some actual real world testing into all the guesswork and opinions in this thread. :lever: Yesterday was an ~82 degree cloudless day. As we went shopping I had a chance to test this. Car was parked in direct sunlight in the typical black asphalt parking lot. I intentionally parked way out in the middle, not near the store. My car has the dark interior. First, no ventilation, windows rolled up, etc. I wandered back out to the car after about 10 minutes and it was HOT inside the car, as you would expect. I would estimate the internal temp at around 105 degrees. Second, I enabled the solar roof, locked it back up and went back in the store. About 15 minutes later I walked back out. Inside the car was warmer than outside, but not much. I would guess 85 degrees. Third, I went back in the store and wife was finally done maybe 15 minutes later. Right at the entrance, I held down the A/C button and saw that the lights flashed on the car. This was from maybe 100 feet away from the car, pretty impressive. We slowly walked over to the car to let it cool down (we hoped), maybe 2 minutes. The interior temp I would guess at about 72 degrees. Observations: 1) The solar roof works extremely well if the outside temp isn't too high. 2) Despite the cooler temp, the steering wheel was still really hot since it was in the sun. 3) The range on the remote A/C button is huge. 4) The remote A/C works very well, especially with the head start the SR gives it. 5) Even just the 2-3 minutes of remote A/C depleted maybe 3/4 of the battery. So the ICE will run more to recharge it, decreasing MPG for the first several minutes after using it. Nothing is free I guess. I hope this data is useful.
Touche! As a data point regarding solar panel w/ exhaust fan vs. being able to automatically open all windows (and sunroof, if applicable) with the remote, I've owned cars with both systems, and if I had to choose, I'd take the auto window opening, since in my experience it's much more effective at getting the interior to a reasonable temp before entering the car.
As a data point, when it's really hot in Phoenix, if it only takes 30 seconds to get to the car, that's really not enough time for the remote A/C to work. If your battery is at 2 bars, you may get 10 seconds before it shuts down again. This is where remote start may cool better, but at a further MPG expense.
It is useful that you gave your real life impressions of the solar roof, but you did make guesses at the temperatures. As long as it feels cooler, that makes it useful to have. Solar roof sounds like it would help quite a bit as I assumed it would, but the cost is so high. The option is really expensive and then made even more expensive by requiring the navigation package. $5400 in total options needed!!! Remote windows would probably only add less than $100 in parts and assembly cost at the factory. Maybe a lot less. It may not work as well as the solar roof package, but would be alot better than nothing at all. That's why they should add this feature.
Just wondering how you get to $5400 in options. The solar roof package, which includes everything in the navigation package is $3600. So you can look at it like the solar roof option is an additional $1800 on top of the $1800 navigation package. It's just that you have to take the nav to get the solar roof...
