OPINION: Dear carmakers, take a cue from Elon Musk if you want to put air purifiers in your car

There is a perfectly valid reason why Elon Musk’s Tesla is the most valuable car company out there. With a market cap of over $760 billion (as of 12 June 2023) Tesla is miles ahead of Toyota Motor Corp, which ranks second at approximately $200 billion.

Whether you are a fan of Elon Musk and Tesla or not, you have to agree that Tesla has been monumental in making EVs cool and influencing the global adoption of EVs. More than that, though the fact remains, that under Musk, Tesla has been making some pretty good cars, and properly implemented, well-thought-out features.

Tesla’s Bioweapon Defense Mode
During the worst wildfire season Canada has seen in over a decade several cities in the east coast of US were engulfed in dusty red smoke that made cities like New York look like they were the setting for the next Mad Max film, Tesla owners had a reason to thank Musk for the way he envisions Tesla cars.

Last week numerous Tesla drivers in the eastern US took action in response to the air quality ‘red alerts’ by activating their vehicles’ ‘Bioweapon Defense Mode’ function. They enthusiastically shared their positive experiences with this feature on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s social network.

The ‘Bioweapon Defense’ feature, with its ominous name, enhances the HEPA filtration system in the Tesla and puts it into overdrive mode. This in turn enables Tesla users to breathe fresh air instead of constantly recirculating the air inside the car. This feature proved especially beneficial as it protected them from inhaling the smoke caused by the ongoing wildfires that have been spreading southward from Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario for almost a week.

When Tesla initially added this feature to their cars, many people in the US dismissed it as a novelty feature. Had Tesla been operational in the Indian subcontinent, or had the feature been released in any Indian car, people in India would surely have appreciated this feature.

HEPA Filters – What is it and what do they do?
Elon Musk revealed that cars such as the Model S and Model X are big enough that Tesla could fit in HEPA filters that are normally used by hospitals in their air filtration systems. The smaller Model 3 and Model Y are also capable of great levels of filtration, but they have been packaged in such a way that they could not use the same filters.

For those who are unaware, HEPA filters are a type of pleated mechanical air filter. It stands for “high-efficiency particulate air (filter)”. This type of filter has the ability to potentially remove a minimum of 99.97 per cent of dust, pollen, mould, bacteria, and other airborne particles measuring 0.3 microns in size.

The specification of 0.3 microns represents the most challenging scenario, where particles of this size are the most difficult to capture (referred to as the most penetrating particle size, or MPPS). Furthermore, the HEPA filter demonstrates even higher efficiency in trapping particles larger than 0.3 microns. By using the worst-case particle size, the filter has an efficiency rating of 99.97 per cent or higher for all particle sizes.

Tesla promotes the exceptional feature of its vehicles on its website, emphasizing that “Bioweapon Defense Mode” is not just a marketing claim, but a genuine capability. According to Tesla, sitting inside one of their cars equipped with this feature would provide actual protection against a bio attack of military-grade severity. Upgrading a Tesla Model S manufactured between 2012 and 2020 with HEPA air filtration and the Bioweapon Defense Mode feature incurs a cost of $500.

OEM Air Purifiers in Indian Cars
Thanks to the pandemic, the Indian car market saw carmakers start offering “custom-made” OEM air purifiers. What they meant by custom-made, was that they would take generic car purifiers that are available on Amazon for Rs 3000-5000, slap their own sticker on it, triple or sometimes even quadruple the price, and offer it as an optional extra. Showrooms, on the other hand, wouldn’t sell you a car unless you bought their “essential add-on kits” and with it, these air purifiers.

Had these air purifiers been functional to some degree, we’re pretty sure that no one would have complained, the docile creatures that Indian customers are. The problem is, they don’t work, ever. Also, what’s the point of “purifying” air, once it already is inside the cabin of the car? Shouldn’t that be done while passing the air into the cabin?

The ones that do work, come from reputable manufacturers and cost a lot. And although they have their limitations, most Indian car buyers wouldn’t bat an eyelid in adding it as an option to their cars, given that 39 Indian cities are listed among the world’s 50 most polluted.

The “Air Filtration System” that we get in Indian Cars
Right off the bat, the Air Filtration System that we get in cars in India, even at the top end, can only be described as inadequate at best. In “budget-segment” cars, by which we mean cars that cost around 17-25 lakhs, the air filtration system is a very basic filter and a mesh.

In cars that cost around 10-15 lakhs, some car makers only use mesh as a filter. Go down the fiscal food chain a little more, and you’ll see the “filter” quality degrade even more – sometimes, it is absent altogether.

Instead of focusing on novelty features that are genuinely of no use – like having a personal “AI” based assistant that can’t even place a call when required to, or heads-up displays or the worst feature of them all, social media integrations, how about we have features that are actually useful? Like a proper air filtration system, preferably with HEPA filters? And while you’re at it, also throw in a good dashcam, will you? We’re pretty sure that most Indian car buyers will go for these options.

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