Patent ID: 8006508

Claim:
An air conditioner for vehicles that air-conditions an inside of a vehicle and that uses at least an engine as a driving source, comprising: an adjusting unit configured to adjust at least one of a temperature and an air volume of air discharged from an air outlet provided inside the vehicle using power supplied from an electric storage unit charged by driving the engine; a driving source control unit configured to select and execute either one of a charge priority control that controls the engine to prioritize charging of the electric storage unit over improvement of fuel efficiency of the engine, and a normal control that controls the engine to prioritize the improvement of the fuel efficiency of the engine; an air conditioning control unit configured to execute a pre-air conditioning control on the adjusting unit, using the power supplied from the electric storage unit, to air-condition the inside of the vehicle before a vehicle occupant boards the vehicle; and a calculating unit configured to calculate an operation frequency of the execution of the pre-air conditioning control by the air conditioning control unit, wherein the driving source control unit executes the charge priority control when the operation frequency calculated by the calculating unit is equal to or higher than a predetermined level based on a frequency of execution of the pre-air conditioning control, and executes the normal control when the operation frequency is lower than the predetermined level.