(September 5, 2010) The next generation Ford Focus has been tested in some of the most extreme locations on the planet. It's been thrashed over frozen lakes, hammered across the hottest deserts and driven overloaded up and down high Alpine passes to ensure impeccable reliability and dependability wherever it is sold.

While many of these tests focus on how such climate extremes affect the performance of the vehicle, the comfort of the driver and passengers in these tough conditions is equally important.

Ford's climate control test team travels the world to ensure that the car's EATC (Electronic Automatic Temperature Control) system can handle anything a customer can throw at it. From Finland to Spain, Italy to Arizona, the system needs to be able to cool the occupants down quickly and comfortably in scorching sun and warm them up just as rapidly when the temperature drops.

Ford says that in the next generation Focus, which is launched later this year, the EATC system cools occupants more comfortably and efficiently than ever before. The fans are quieter and are capable of moving cool air through the cabin more quickly. The team’s task is to fine-tune this system to ensure it is as comfortable, effective and efficient as possible, while ensuring it meets the varying needs of customers around the world.

One of the team's regular testing locations is Antequera in Southern Spain. Known as the
crossroads of Andalucia, the medieval town is set on a plain some 600 metres above sea
level. Outside of summer, it is a rich, fertile area popular with history buffs who flock to the
town to see some of Europe's oldest and most important dolmens, or burial sites.

But in the height of summer, the area around Antequera is one of the hottest places in
continental Western Europe, with temperatures regularly rising above 40 degrees Celsius. It is a parched, barren landscape, perfect for putting the next-generation Focus to the test.

Ford systems engineer Klaus Schuermanns is here for two weeks, driving more than 300 miles a day, six days a week. "We have two versions of the next generation Focus here," he explains. "We are doing a subjective and an objective evaluation of the EATC system in both cars so that we can finalise calibrations. We take all the data from the EATC and then we compare that with what we actually feel inside the car, as well as with objective data from the cabin, such as the breathing level temperature. We then make adjustments to fine tune the system."

"We have visited this area five or six times with different development programmes because it gives us everything we need. The weather conditions are consistently very good, there is very little wind, it's easy to get here from Germany and there are also some mountains near here where we can climb and experience temperature changes of 10 to 15 degrees."

Today, the team is testing two camouflaged vehicles — a four-door version for the North American market and a five-door European-spec Focus. Klaus is at the wheel of the European model, while his colleagues sit in the passenger seats studying a laptop displaying the findings of more than 200 sensors placed around the car.

These sensors record a myriad of data, including ambient temperature, AC pressures, engine speed, and sunlight. Chrome-nickel thermo couples are attached to the windows, the seats, the radio, and all around the drivers and passengers, monitoring the temperature throughout the cabin.

One of the main challenges for the team is that customers in North America have different
preferences to their European counterparts, so the two test vehicles have different calibrations. North American customers generally like to feel a strong cooling effect while the European customer preference is for the cabin to be cooled slightly less and to not actually feel the chilled air.

This is where the team's experience in subjectively evaluating the system comes in. The sensors can monitor actual data, but the more subjective, human experience of how the cabin feels as it cools is just as important.

While other test teams have to push the car hard on mountain roads, testing the vehicle to its limits, Klaus and his colleagues have a rather more sedate challenge: "Highway driving is the best way to test the climate system. It is not the most interesting road, and after driving several hundred kilometres on the same road for days at a time, it can get a bit boring, but we are not testing the driving dynamics of the car; we need a straight road and a constant speed, so we can concentrate on how the climate system is performing."

After 160 miles of motorway driving, the two cars pull over outside a small, deserted roadside café. At this time of year, few locals venture outside in the middle of the day, while tourists wisely flock to the beaches and the cooling sea breezes of the Costa del Sol, 60 miles to the south. Bypassing the shade offered by two large olive trees, the engineers park the vehicles side by side in direct sunlight.

"This is the pull down test," explains Klaus." It's very important. The vehicles are soaked in the sun for about an hour, until the temperature in the cabin reaches about 60 degrees Celsius. Then we get inside and we drive 20 miles or so and we see how long it takes to get back down to the chosen comfort point, and we monitor how this process feels inside the car. The first few minutes are really quite uncomfortable, but it's a great AC system so after just a few minutes it is much more bearable.

Other tests carried out by the engineers include an altitude test and a control curve, where the team changes the temperature settings in the car and then monitors how it feels as the system copes with the changes. As they drive, Klaus and his colleagues are able to directly make changes to the EATC calibration. They have a de-brief every evening to discuss their findings and plan the next day's testing.

With the vehicles' cabins cooled back down to a comfortable temperature, it's time to head back to the motorway for another 150km or so of driving at a constant speed. As the day draws to a close and we near the hotel, a third Focus is pulling away. Klaus explains that they like to test the vehicles at night to take the effects of the sun out of the equation. For Klaus, though, another day's testing has come to an end.

"Sitting in the car all day is tough, but that is the only thing I don't enjoy about this job," he enthuses. "We get a lot of people trying to take pictures as we drive along and people are always asking us about the car. But the most important thing for us is that the AC system, which in this all-new Focus is great. That makes our job much easier, not to mention more comfortable."