Air-Curtain Microclimate Control for Energy-Efficient HVAC Operation in Electric Vehicles

This paper investigates the potential of localized air-curtain microclimate control to reduce HVAC energy consumption in electric vehicles while maintaining occupant thermal comfort. The study compares conventional full-cabin cooling with driver-focused and passenger-focused air-curtain configurations under controlled ambient conditions of 32 °C. The experimental framework combines analytical airflow and heat-transfer modeling with comparative HVAC performance evaluation using power consumption, time to reach thermal comfort, and Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) analysis. The results show that the air-curtain configurations reduce HVAC power consumption from 3.2 kW for conventional cooling to 2.3 kW and 2.5 kW for the driver- and passenger-focused configurations, corresponding to energy savings of approximately 22–28%. In addition, localized airflow significantly accelerates thermal comfort attainment, reducing stabilization time from 8 min to 4–5 min while maintaining PMV values within acceptable comfort limits. The findings demonstrate that occupant-centered air-curtain microclimate strategies can improve HVAC energy efficiency, reduce auxiliary energy demand, and support more sustainable and range-efficient operation of next-generation electric vehicles.