Self-Adjusting Seats Find A Home In Luxury Cars

Cameron Aubernon
by Cameron Aubernon

With help from Faurecia SA and Johnson Controls — the latter predicting the death of the steering wheel by 2025luxury car owners could find themselves with one less thing (or 22) to worry about as self-adjusting seats aim to take the guesswork out of comfortable driving.

Automotive News reports that the two leading seat suppliers are working on self-adjusting seats that utilize cameras and pressure sensors to tailor the perfect seating for a level of comfort not easily achieved with the numerous controls currently found in luxury sedans, as Faurecia’s senior industrial design manager Olivier Boinais explains:

The complexity of a luxury sedan’s seat controls taxes the motorist’s patience. For the past 10 years, we’ve been trying to simplify the [seat] adjustments while providing comfort.

Boinais expects his employer’s seat, the Oasis, will first be found in luxury long-wheelbase sedans meant for chauffeuring executives from meeting to meeting in Beijing and San Jose, such the Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7 Series and Audi A8. The Oasis works its magic by utilizing a video camera to help the executive fire and hire people in comfort.

Johnson Controls’ own seat goes for a two-pronged approach: The passenger first enters their height via smartphone or onboard console, then sits back against the adjusted head and foot rests as pressure sensors evaluate posture for perfect seating.

According to JCI’s group vice president of technology management Andreas Eppinger, having the seat do the work can quickly improve driving comfort, leaving more time to focus on more important matters:

If you have ever tried to adjust a seat with 18 controls, it keeps you pretty busy. You can sit however you want, but if you are not sitting in the perfect position, you might regret it after an hour.

Cameron Aubernon
Cameron Aubernon

Seattle-based writer, blogger, and photographer for many a publication. Born in Louisville. Raised in Kansas. Where I lay my head is home.

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  • B72 B72 on Feb 17, 2014

    Nothing could possibly go wrong. A damaged sensor couldn't possibly result in crushing your knees against the dashboard or pretzeling your spine as your your seat goes up and you run out of room. Bodily injury from the maladjustment aside, there's always the possibility that the seat places you in a position from which it is impossible to maintain control of your vehicle. A hacked version might make an appearance as an interrogation chair in an upcoming spy thriller.

  • Ponchoman49 Ponchoman49 on Feb 18, 2014

    LOL at no steering wheel by 2025. So does that mean if the car's computer gets pissed off at the young punk at the wheel it can now properly eject the driver by it's self adjusting seat?

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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