Invisible hitchhikers may be lurking in your car

Working to reduce VOCs
It's unlikely anyone would mistake the $17,000 Scion xB for a luxury car, especially if luxury means low VOCs: The hip little econobox is one of the worst-rated vehicles at healthycar.org. Only two other cars are lower on the list: Chevy's Aveo and Nissan's Versa.

When asked about the ranking, Kevin Webber, general manager of vehicle regulation and certification engineering for Toyota (which owns the Scion brand), said that the company is working to reduce VOCs in all of its vehicles by 2010. "To put this in some context, these reductions would mean that VOC levels in our vehicles would be at less than current limits set in Japan for new buildings," he said. "Also, it should be understood that this is not a simple task of replacing one interior material for another. It is still necessary to validate a test that can assess the complex interaction of interior materials that may result in VOC emissions."

Toyota probably won't be the only car manufacturer to view change with trepidation. And one company, Honda, doesn't seem so sure change is necessary, even though its own vehicles score low in VOCs. "Everyone gets into a new car and says, 'Oh, I smell something,' " says Amy Lilly, Honda's environmental and energy-affairs analyst. "Sometimes when someone has read something like the Ecology Center's report, it makes them unduly concerned."

Volvo, on the other hand, doesn't see all that much difference between air quality and air bags — the company considers both critical for passenger safety. Since 1998, Volvo has employed the "clean compartment concept" in all of its vehicles, and it's the only automaker with such a program. That means, for example, phthalates are kept to a minimum; all metals meet the European standard for jewelry (with nickel exposure kept below 0.5 µg/cm2/wk to prevent contact allergies); and seats are upholstered with not just leather, but chromium-free leather. Brominated flame retardants are also out, though that wasn't entirely Volvo's call: When researchers in Sweden found out 5 years ago that levels of the chemicals were increasing rapidly in breast milk, they banned them completely.

That new-car smell
Ironically, once you remove most of the chemicals from a car's cabin, you also remove an ineffable joy of owning a new car: the new-car smell. And that's fine with the folks at Volvo, who equate that addictive odor with unhealthy air. "We have our own nose team," says Eeva-Liisa Book, Volvo's manager of environmental communication. This intrepid group of nonsmoking, non–deodorant-wearing 20- to 40-year-olds takes a sniff of nearly every material destined for a new Volvo model. Such is the power of their noses, that a single nostril wrinkle can send something to the scrap heap.

Emission control Protect your lungs from the air outside your car Be glad the next time a bug head-butts your windshield — unlike you, the bug at least won't have to inhale any more of the fumes floating above the road. "When I see someone on the freeway with the windows open I want to scream," says Arantza Eiguren, Ph.D., a researcher at UCLA's center for occupational and environmental health. "They don't know what they're exposed to." The pollutants that have Eiguren so panicked are called ultrafine particles. Less than 100 nanometers in size, they're tiny enough to lodge in your lungs and slip into your bloodstream, increasing your risk of respiratory problems and heart trouble. Of course, if you keep the windows up and vents closed, you may breathe VOCs instead. The answer? Replace your car's paper cabin filter with a Bosch Activated Charcoal Filter or a MicronAir High Efficiency Particulate Filter with Activated Charcoal (micronair.us). Both are made with an electrostatically charged layer that helps remove ultrafine particles, and they use activated charcoal to filter many VOCs.

Until more evidence accumulates, it's doubtful that anyone shopping for a new car will consider VOCs ahead of AWD, or ABS, or any of the other acronyms with more tangible impacts on our wallets and well-being. Nevertheless, Gearhart hopes the reports from the Ecology Center and the Osaka Prefectural Institute of Public Health will at least make consumers think about cabin air quality.

"We have over 100 million cars on the road built without standards for the makeup of a healthy vehicle," says Gearhart. "We're trying to prod the industry to be more proactive, not only in avoiding the chemicals we've indicated, but in using safer chemicals, period."

EPA silent on the issue
Of course, new standards might be implemented sooner if the federal government would flex some regulatory muscle with automakers. But surprisingly, the same agency that sets limits on how much pollution cars can spew into the outside air seems indifferent to the toxic smog swirling inside them. "(The EPA) has no position on indoor air in cars," says spokesperson Dave Ryan. Yet the EPA's Web site shows that it's clearly aware of the danger:

Many organic compounds are known to cause cancer in animals; some are suspected of causing, or are known to cause, cancer in humans.

The same Web page, which goes so far as to offer advice on reducing exposure to VOCs emitted from household products such as paints and certain cleaners, is silent about car cabins. When asked for an explanation, Ryan couldn't offer one and did "not care to speculate."

What can a worried road warrior do if even the EPA doesn't have his back? Because more VOCs are released when the interior heats up, buy a windshield sun blind to help lessen the greenhouse effect (assuming you can handle the geek factor). Along the same lines, roll down the windows and wait for the oven-hot air to dissipate before you slide behind the wheel. In fact, some carmakers, such as BMW, have models that allow you to program an exhaust fan to switch on for pre-cooling/pre-venting. Another simple and inexpensive strategy: Swap the standard cabin air filter for one made with activated charcoal.

Or you could simply hold your breath. You'll be completely safe from the worst that's lurking in your car. As for the danger of passing out in the passing lane, well, that's another matter.

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