Holistic seat climate system

A system, comprising:

• one or more sensors, wherein the one or more sensors comprises a plurality of external sensors positioned outside a vehicle and a plurality of internal sensors positioned within the vehicle;
• one or more controllers configured to:
• receive a thermal comfort setting for each of one or more seats within a volumetric space of the vehicle, wherein the one or more seats comprises one or more thermal elements adapted to control a temperature of each of the one or more seats to provide the thermal comfort setting;
• receive data from the one or more sensors;
• determine, based on the received thermal comfort setting and the received data, a temperature setting for a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system, and a temperature setting for the one or more seats;
• evaluate a vehicle climate index based on the data received from the one or more sensors;
• determine an operating state of the vehicle including an “ON” state or an “OFF” state based on at least one of the vehicle climate index;
• in response to determining the operating state is the “ON” state, activate the HVAC system to achieve an optimized thermal comfort setting based on the determined temperature setting for the HVAC system;
• in response to determining the operating state is the “OFF” state, activate at least one of the one or more thermal elements while maintaining the vehicle in the “OFF” state based on the temperature setting for the one or more seats;
• and
• control operation of the HVAC system and the one or more thermal elements based on the vehicle climate index and the vehicle operating state to optimize energy consumption by the HVAC system and the one or more thermal elements.