Volta trucks

Seating Trends: Driver centred solutions

Designing the cabin to allow the driver to sit in the centre and the development of lighter, more sustainable seats

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A centrally-positioned driver’s seat isn’t just for sports cars like the McLaren F1: it’s well-suited to optimise both interior space and all-round vision in different types of vehicle, and particularly in electric vehicles without a front engine compartment.

Volta Trucks places the driver centrally in its delivery van, giving a better view out – and thus heightened awareness of other, vulnerable, road-users such as pedestrians and cyclists – as well as easier access to the cab through the sliding doors on each side. The tiny 3222mm-long Uniti One urban commuter EV, designed in Sweden, also positions the driver in the middle, up front with two flat-folding passenger seats behind; this three-seat layout allows for 155 litres of luggage space three-up, but up to 760 ‘usable’ litres seats-down.

Three-seater layouts up front (with a driver to one side) may also be making a comeback. The new Land Rover Defender comes with a central fold-down ‘jump’ seat option, and while the Tesla Cybertruck’s seats aren’t its most instantly-striking feature, this super-wide pick-up (2032mm) can easily accommodate a trio abreast in what is perhaps the most controversial-looking six-seater since the Fiat Multipla.

The virtual seat

Hyundai hopes its new Virtual Seat Buck will significantly speed up development. Cloud-hosted VR enables designers to evaluate both interior and exterior design data, share it between studios and with engineers, simultaneously work on it, and explore colour and materials options as well as dynamic representation of functionalities. “VR will not only accelerate and facilitate our design process, but also enable us to better meet the demands of Hyundai customers,” says Thomas Bürkle, chief designer, Hyundai Design Center Europe.

Hyundai Virtual Seat Buck 3
Hyundai Virtual Seat Buck

Lighter layers

Innovations under the surface are key to reducing seat weight, and here the plastics and petrochemicals industry is playing a particular part. At K 2019, a plastics trade fair in Düsseldorf, Covestro unveiled an interior concept showcasing its latest lightweight materials. Its seats have a sandwich structure with a polycarbonate composite shell, said to be both lightweight and stable. Plastics giant Dow showed seats at K with thinner and lighter foams, using polyether polyols said to reduce VOC (volatile organic compound) emissions by up to 50%, to offer better ‘foam shape memory’ – i.e. less sagging when sat upon – and to allow for more complex component design, thanks to the foam’s flowability and compression properties.

Covestro seats
Covestro seats with a polycarbonate composite shell

Proseat, supplier of seat foams and surfaces to clients including the VW Group, displayed seating materials with low weight, high stiffness and good ventilation properties, which combine foam and EPP (expanded polypropylene).

The Fraunhofer ICT (Institute for Chemical Technology), meanwhile, highlighted its research into more sustainable solutions with a seat back-rest module made from a combination of recycled engineering plastics around a steel structure and bio-based, self-reinforced PLA (polylactic acid) compound sheeting, a biodegradable thermoplastic. However, issues do remain around bio-plastics in terms of durability, quality, heat resistance and other safety concerns, restricting where they may be used in a vehicle, so such materials may still be some way from series production.

Carry-away child seat

Removable child seats tend to be heavy and awkward, but the compact WayB Pico – winner of a 2019 Fast Company Innovation by Design award, and a gold trophy from the International Design Excellence Awards run by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) – weighs just 3.6kg, due to its aerospace-grade extruded aluminium frame. It has a handy breathable mesh cover, removable for washing, a sliding headrest for optimum head protection, and a simple anchoring and tethering mechanism. WayB also points out that its use of plastic is minimised and that aluminium is recyclable. https://wayb.com

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