Health and well-being

In a world where we must learn to live with viruses, health and safety in vehicles is becoming a fundamental issue for mobility, as it involves reconciling safety, ecology and health. Valeo has taken the full measure of this challenge and offers solutions to guarantee health in personal cars, coaches, and buses. At the same time, with the increasing prevalence of automated driving, your car is becoming a new personal space where you can take time for yourself. We are planning ahead for this new scenario by also developing solutions offering personalized, self-adapting thermal comfort.

Air quality and health in vehicles

Today’s global pandemic has highlighted the need to protect the health of users of public and shared transport. Valeo has been innovating for many years in this area and already offers solutions such as Valeo Oxy’Zen, which detects outdoor pollution and automatically activates a high efficiency filter. In addition, Valeo has developed a technology that turns vehicles into powerful health protection systems: our air purifier for buses and coaches. Valeo UV Purifier sterilizes the air in buses and coaches, while passengers are on board. The system eliminates more than 95% of viruses, including Covid-19, as well as airborne bacteria and mold in the cabin in a single pass. In passenger cars, Valeo offers solutions such as high efficiency filters with polyphenol coatings, which also significantly reduce viral and allergen loads (96% of pollen inhibited) in the cabin air.

Personalized thermal comfort

Valeo develops intelligent comfort solutions that are fully personalized and localized, to closely match the actual needs and sensations of each individual. Thanks to cameras and biometric sensors coupled with intelligent algorithms, these technologies analyze the metabolism (body temperature, stress level, heart rate, etc.) and clothing of each passenger, as well as the car’s thermal environment to offer a unique energy-efficient cabin heating solution based on the intelligent distribution of energy between the air and interior surfaces. Valeo’s solutions reduce energy consumption for heating by 50% at -7°C outside temperature with a single driver, and up to 25% at maximum occupancy.

Empathic vehicles

With the help of artificial intelligence based on data from various biometric sensors and cameras in the cabin, Valeo is developing solutions to assess the physiological, emotional, and cognitive state of each passenger in order to offer each person a personalized, multi-sensory comfort bubble, by modulating lighting, fragrances, acoustics, and thermal comfort. By learning from each person’s habits, vehicles will be able to anticipate and offer a specific level of comfort that closely matches user expectations. In the future, the vehicle may also be able to protect the health of passengers, not only by adjusting the atmosphere inside the cabin, but also by detecting potential loss of consciousness and adapting the level of driving automation accordingly, or even driving itself to a medical center if necessary. Leveraging our expertise in thermal control, air quality, detection systems and interior lighting, we offer a holistic approach based on physiological sensors, smart cameras, and algorithms to offer a new in-cabin experience.