Climate Control Undressed and Exposed

As I'm sure many of you are aware, some of the more upscale cars or vehicles offer a feature called climate control. For both of you who don't know what this is, instead of just being able to blow cold or hot air out of the vents it will automatically maintain a certain temperature. This seems like a great feature and one that I would actually enjoy, but the story doesn't stop here.

Car makers have taken it one step further and offer dual climate control which allows both the driver and front passenger to select their own temperature independent of each other. This is where I begin to have an issue. I mean, is this actually possible?

As a high school graduate, a college graduate, an electrical engineer and just a sane rational person, I'm going to tell you that dual climate control just isn't possible. The driver and passenger are sitting too close to each other for me to believe that each one is enjoying their own separate temperature. I'm not aware of any invisible barrier that keeps the two regions independent of each other. I will concede that the vents can work independently, but the cabin area is just far too small to maintain separate temperature zones.

As a result, there is no way that I would pay extra for a vehicle to have dual climate control. If there's a car I want that has this feature in the base model, I might go for it. But I definitely wouldn't seek it out.