Riding clean in a world after COVID-19

While contactless transactions have become the “new normal” for many of the things we purchase amid COVID-19, how do we make car-buying safer when shoppers want to experience the car inside and out? 

According to a Cox Automotive study, about 83 percent of consumers say it’s extremely or very important to disinfect vehicle surfaces after a service appointment or test drive. 

The truth is, vehicles have always been vectors for germs. With all the attention on how dirty our phones get, the typical car interior is 2,144 times dirtier than your average smartphone, according to a study by Car Rentals. Steering wheels alone are six times dirtier than the average cellphone screen. This means, even as we work to solve the problems the coronavirus pandemic has created, we really should be thinking of long-term solutions for sustainable vehicle hygiene.

COVID-19 has emphasized the automotive industry’s shortcomings when it comes to cleaning and disinfecting vehicles. So we’ll need to rethink and modify our processes geared toward safety and social responsibility. 

Short term, we’re seeing a number of solutions — but most are just temporary fixes. Wiping down surfaces with any common disinfectant wipe may sound like a good idea, but when used repeatedly, will it harm the materials in the car and the people it’s designed to protect? And what about the long-term effects on the environment? 

More education is needed for the industry and consumers around disinfectant products and their applications. Carefully balancing the fear factor with risk and the need for enhanced safety measures is essential to moving forward. 

As a physician, I know the importance of clinical trials and testing to achieve reliable success rates against a new virus, or when a new disease is discovered. With this global health crisis, this model can also be applied to the automotive industry. That’s why it’s important for dealers, fleet owners and ride-share companies to introduce and test new solutions and protocols now.

We’re already starting to see window stickers and hangtags that indicate a vehicle has been sanitized or disinfected. But what’s the difference, and do people genuinely care? Some products just clean surfaces temporarily, while others bond to surfaces to provide much longer protection. So what will be deemed acceptable? And what about the air in the cabin? 

Will we see hand sanitizers located throughout every dealership, like you would in a hospital? In the future, will cars have automatically timed spray disinfectants built into the dash? How do we protect our work force that cleans, services and sells vehicles? Where will we draw the line to find the balance between products with chemicals that kill enough of the germs, viruses and the 700 different strains of bacteria living in a car vs. harming the car’s interior and the planet? 

Right now, there are certainly more questions than answers. So those who are well positioned to lead the way in developing vehicle hygiene standards need to step up now. 

Some heightened protocols may be hard to adapt to at first. However, it won’t be long before the necessary emphasis we’re now placing on enhanced vehicle hygiene becomes the new normal.