From Burning Coal to Touchscreens: The Dangerous History of Car Heaters

If you think scraping your windshield in 10°F feels like suffering, just wait until you hear how early drivers tried to stay warm before car heaters existed. Let’s just say… it wasn’t cozy.

Open-Air Freezing: The Original Commute

Early cars? No roofs. No doors. No heat. Basically rolling sleds with engines. The first enclosed cabins didn’t show up until the early 1900s — which means if you were driving through Chicago in January back then, you were basically a popsicle in a hat.

Even when roofs came along, heat wasn’t part of the deal. Some drivers used gas lamps that gave off a bit of warmth (along with methane and carbon monoxide). Others kept heated rocks or trays of burning charcoal under the seats — sometimes tucked in boxes lined with asbestos. Totally safe.

One genius even tried routing muffler heat into the cabin. Great idea… until you think about the carbon monoxide.

Car Heaters Got Safer. But Now They’re a Different Kind of Dangerous.

Eventually, proper heaters showed up — thank people like Margaret Wilcox for that — and by the 1960s, most cars had decent systems. Ford’s “Aeroflow” in the Mark I Cortina was a big step: it brought in fresh air through the front and pushed stale air out the back. Revolutionary stuff.

But today? The danger isn’t carbon monoxide — it’s touchscreen menus.

Old-school dials and sliders let you adjust heat without thinking. Now? You’ve got to navigate through 2–3 menu layers on a screen that feels more like a phone than a car dashboard. It’s not just annoying — it’s actually distracting. And dangerous.

A recent study found some in-car touchscreens take drivers longer to use than sending a text — even though texting while driving is banned in nearly every state. And yes, some brands are admitting this was a mistake. Even VW’s CEO recently said getting rid of buttons was a bad move.

So, Are We Better Off Now?

Definitely. No one's lighting coal trays in the footwell anymore. But trading fire hazards for finger gymnastics on a touchscreen? Not exactly perfect either.

Modern heaters are powerful, safe, and work instantly — as long as you don’t crash while scrolling for the defrost button.