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BMW Wants to Harness the Energy in the Cabin Air

It’s simply staggering the level of detail engineers these days have when it comes to figuring out ways of harnessing and saving up energy. One of BMW’s latest tricks that might make it to the market in the next years is harnessing the energy available in the cabin air.
BMW EfficientDynamics Heating 1 photo
Photo: BMW
Think about it. So much energy goes into heating the air for your cabin, it would actually be a terrible waste to let it just slip out without taking back some of it. That’s what the engineers thought and quickly came up with a solution.

The process of recuperating some of that energy involves heat exchangers through which air goes before being released in the outside world. After that, the energy is then used to preheat the air entering the vehicle’s heating system, reducing the amount needed to warm up the cabin.

It might not be too much but, on an electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle, where every watt matters, it might actually make a difference. In the even further future, infrared panels could be used to heat up specific people inside the car, without having to heat up the entire cabin.

Using some next-gen technology, the devices will heat only one seat if there’s only one person inside the car, two seats for two persons and so on, thus reducing the energy consumption even more. The future sure does sound interesting!
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