Timely Advice for Cleanliness
Whether you’re an essential worker or you need to visit local businesses during the coronavirus health crisis, it’s critical to drive safely and make sure you keep your hands and vehicle as clean as possible. If the virus gets onboard your EV (or any car), it could become a danger to anyone who drives it.
Fortunately, there are easy ways to disinfect your car and keep it free from harmful germs. Use these five cleaning tips when taking your next ride.
Wipe down all high-touch areas.
Be mindful of every part of your EV that you touch, including:
- Exterior and interior door handles
- Grab handles
- Seat belts
- Center console
- Window buttons
- Shifter
- Turn signal
- Radio and A/C buttons
- Air vents
- Display screens
- Glove box
- Mirrors
- Steering wheel
If you touch it, you need to clean it regularly. Wear disposable gloves and wipe down every surface possible, then discard the gloves and wash your hands.
Give your steering wheel extra attention.
Most steering wheels have a texture with cracks and crevices to help you maintain grip. But that also makes them a natural place for harmful germs to hide.
Spend extra time cleaning and disinfecting your steering wheel thoroughly. If you haven’t done it in a while, you’ll probably be shocked by how dirty it is.
Use cleaners that are safe for car interiors.
First, let’s start with what not to use: anything with bleach, hydrogen peroxide or ammonia. These will kill coronavirus. However, these chemicals can also ruin plastics and vinyl used in most EVs.
Harsh chemicals can also damage cloth fabrics in your car’s interior. Be sure to check your vehicle owner’s manual for the right way to clean touch display screens, so you don’t ruin any protective or anti-glare coatings.
Your best bet is to use hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes to clean the high-touch surfaces of your car. These may contain alcohol, which is generally safe for most vehicles. In the event you can’t find any, try a microfiber cloth.
Helen Boehm Johnson, MD, physician and consultant in the infection prevention and control field, recommends using microfiber cloths that claim to remove 99.9 percent of microbes. She says, “Their split fiber design creates a larger surface area for microbe removal. Plus, the net positive charge generated when they’re used attracts negatively-charged dirt and microorganisms.”
Microfiber cloths can be used dry or damp and are a safe and convenient way to clean your EV’s interior. You can even launder cloths up to 200 times with bleach or 500 times without it.
Keep hand sanitizer in your EV.
If you do have access to hand sanitizer, always keep a small bottle in the pocket of your driver’s side door. Use it to clean your hands after you open the car door, and before getting into it. That helps avoid bringing any harmful germs into your EV.
Also, don’t store a large bottle of sanitizer in your car, especially in warm weather. The heat could cause a reaction that makes the container leak. It’s better to have a couple of smaller bottles handy than a big one. And if you don’t have any sanitizer, wash your hands properly right before getting into your car.
Keep latex gloves in your EV.
When you make a stop or reach your destination, it’s a good idea to have some latex gloves in your car that you can wear. Public keypads, grocery carts and EV charging stations are places you can potentially pick up coronavirus. Another option is to have a roll of paper towels in your EV that you can use to cover your hands.
After you use gloves, invert them and throw them away. Then use sanitizer to make sure your hands are clean before getting back into your car or touching anything. This routine will ensure that you’re not transferring the virus to your car’s interior.
While no amount of scrubbing can guarantee that you won’t bring coronavirus into your EV or get sick, regularly disinfecting your car’s most-touched surfaces minimizes your risk. It also helps reduce the likelihood of spreading an infection to others. And here’s a bonus: You’ll enjoy a car that’s probably cleaner than you’ve seen it in a while.
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