I used to see a special auto accessory in mail-order catalogs: a solar-powered fan that fits on a car window and keeps the air inside a car, presumably parked out in the hot sun on a summer day, from becoming an oven in terms of ambient temperature. I’m having no luck; the major auto parts places in the South Bay (Los Angeles County), O’Reilly’s and Pep Boys, don’t carry it. Any info?
I had one for about two hours. When I opened the car door it fell out, landed on the pavement, and broke.
My aunt had one when she lived in Tucson. She didn’t really think it helped that much. It didn’t chill the air. Allegedly it pulled hot air out of the car (somehow) and replaced it with cooler air, but in Tucson there wasn’t a lot of cooler air to begin with. I did see quite a few of them but I didn’t exactly hear glowing testimonials. (This was around 2002, so the technology may have improved. Or not.)
That said, if you google “solar auto cooler” you will get hits–looks like they have them on amazon.com for instance, or from eBay.
ETA: Scewed up link, try this: https://www.amazon.com/Kulcar-Solar-Powered-Ventilator-Version/dp/B00J97X2YG?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
I loved this Q&A on the Amazon page:
I once bought one of these at Goodwill for a couple bucks.
I put it in direct sunlight and the fans barely moved at all.
So, that’s why it was at Goodwill.
I looked around at JC Whitney but their search is screwy right now. That’s the kind of thing they’d have, though I bet you’d be disappointed in the product.
J C Whitney? I’ve never seen one of those in southern Los Angeles County…
I’m not sure where to get those, but I’ve heard they don’t work very well. They aren’t going to move very much air and it won’t make much of a difference if they do. Even if you had the car interior fan going at full blast, your car would still be pretty hot.
One thing that can make a difference is getting your windows tinted. The tint will reflect the heat away from your car’s interior so it won’t be as hot and it will be easier to cool off when you turn the AC on.
The disadvantage there is that you lose visibility through the windows, especially at night.
If push comes to shove I may consider some kind of curtains.
J C Whitney is a mail-order catalog.
Do you have a postal or Internet address for them?
But it, like all their other products, would be made of “heavy-duty plastic”.
Curses! Ninja’d!
You’re right that the visibility will be affected, but it may be worth going by a tint shop and taking a look at what they have. Different tints will block different percentages of visible and infrared light. While they don’t have a tint which blocks 0% of visible and 100% of infrared, they do have some which block a lot of the infrared but not much of the visible. You may be able to find one which gives you the visibility you desire and can still keep your car cooler.
Sounds like a good idea.