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Ford Develops Software To Bake Away Coronavirus In Police Vehicles

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Through the course of the current Covid-19 pandemic, one of the hardest hit groups in a number of cities have been police officers and other emergency responders. In Detroit alone, several hundred police officers have been infected and more than a thousand have had to be quarantined after being exposed. Beginning in late-March, engineers at Ford went to work to try to find ways to reduce the exposure of officers to the virus. They came up with a novel software solution that almost entirely bakes it away from the interior of police vehicles. 

Like most microorganisms, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 has a limited temperature range in which it can survive. Get the cabin of a police cruiser hot enough and the virus is deactivated. Unfortunately, the climate control system isn’t designed to normally get the cabin quite that hot. 

Working with researchers at the Ohio State University, it was determined that a 15 minute soak at 133 degrees Fahrenheit will kill off over 99% of the virus in the cabin, even on surfaces that might otherwise be missed during a cleaning. The engineers modified the software in the powertrain control and body control computers to enable a new heat soak mode. 

The new software is initially being rolled out on the Explorer-based Police Interceptor utility from 2013-2019. On 2016 and later models, pressing a specific sequence of cruise control buttons will activate the heat soak. On 2013-2015 models, a diagnostic tool can be plugged in to activate it. When enabled, the engine runs at higher than normal idle speed to get the coolant up to the operating  temperature of 190-200 degrees quickly. 

The normal heating system in a vehicle routes hot coolant through a heat exchanger that heats the cabin air. Normally, the body control computer limits the cabin temperature to somewhere in the mid-80 degree range. However, the modifications allow it to climb to 133 degrees. Once the cabin reaches the target temperature, a timer automatically shuts the mode off after 15 minutes and alerts the officers. 

The heat soak mode can be used at the beginning and end of a shift as officers hand off vehicles as well as after transporting anyone that may have been infected. Since the same officers would normally use a vehicle for an entire shift, there’s no reason to run it continuously. Ford ran successful field trials with vehicles from the New York City Police Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Michigan State Police, Massachusetts State Police, Boardman Township Police Department in Ohio and Seminole County Sheriff’s Office in Florida.

Ford currently accounts for 63% of all police vehicle sales in the U.S. and the Explorer-based utility interceptor accounts for a significant majority of those. The software updates will be made available to larger departments that service their own vehicles as well as dealers that service vehicles from smaller departments. Based on the results of the current pilot program, Ford will decide whether to expand availability to other vehicle models including the recently introduced 2020 police utility and the older Taurus-based sedans.

Disinfection of vehicle interiors has been a topic of discussion among transit agencies and those in the taxi and ride-hailing business in recent weeks as well as those developing automated vehicles for future robotaxi applications. While this Ford solution is practical for police vehicles, it’s not likely to be workable for those other applications. Automated vehicles in particular will often be electric vehicles and taxis and ride hailing vehicles can’t wait 15 minutes between every passenger. Solutions incorporating advanced air filtration and ultraviolet light will likely have to be used for those use cases.

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