New tinted windscreens on Europeans

Little different I think to what your saying, but there are actually cars coming out now with tint that is darker than the max legal tint.
We had a tint dude come to our club talking on this, and they cant get an answer from Vicroads as to why they are legally allowed to do it...

Now back to regular programming

I'm afraid the answer isn't quite as clever as oncoming polarisation, but nice never-the-less. It's an athermic windscreen coating which has found increasing favour with particularly French manufacturers. Knowing the French, the manufacturer is handing our holiday homes to the purchasing teams at these companies, so they're being fitted everywhere...

The main purpose of these is to reduce the oven effect and increased stress on air-con when driving. Why on these cars? Why now?

To cut a long story short, (involving the way pedestrians bounce from the front of bars and cD drag co-efficients) the design direction of many small-medium cars which PSA and Renault excel at is to a very raked windscreen on many models, exposing a wide area of black plastic dash to get all cooked up when parked. This effort aims to reduce the heat effects of this.

Two knock-on effects are that radar detectors are less effective mounted inside the vehicle and it can be difficult to see into the car in certain cirumstances - like a head-on speed camera. Win some, lose some. Radar detectors have a patchy legality in the EU, being entirely legal in the UK and sketchy elsewhere.

Aye,

Tim

Another problem that has cropped up with these windscreens is that if you use a gps without an external aerial they have difficultly getting satellite locks through the screen.
Regards Andrew.