Air conditioning has been vital in enabling man to lead a life filled with comfort and with the advent of technology the areas of application of these extraordinary devices eventually included automobiles. Air conditioning systems are designed to allow the driver and or passengers to feel more comfortable during uncomfortably warm humid or hot trips in a vehicle.

But the impact of portable air conditioning on the mileage of automobiles has been continuously debated over the decades and factors like wind resistance, aerodynamics and engine power and weight have to be factored into finding the true variance between using the air conditioning system and not using it when figuring out difference in actual gas mileage.

However today, the automobile industry is ruled by automatic climate control air conditioning systems which became so popular within a short span of time that by 1960 about 20% of all cars in the U.S. had air-conditioning with the percentage increasing to 80% in the desert areas of the Southwest.