Adient Showcases Luxury Seating Concept at Innovative Seating Conference in Düsseldorf, Germany

It is only a matter of time before we have self-driving on the road. They have already become a reality on test tracks. Some semi-autonomous features have already been incorporated in high-end vehicles. As drivers increasingly give control of the vehicle to technology, they will have more time to relax behind the wheel and do other things in the car. This will translate into a lot of changes in the seating structure in cars.

Speaking about this trend at the Innovative Seating Conference in Düsseldorf, Andreas Maashoff, director Industrial Design and Craftsmanship Europe with Adient said that the quality of life is set to change dramatically when self-driving vehicles hit the roads. Just like the passengers, the drivers will also become riders and they will be able to get time during their commute to perform other tasks. Adient’s advanced seating technology will be able to increase the safety and reduce the stress of commuting.

Car design is set to undergo a sea change and the interior concepts will have to be modified to accommodate the needs of the driver, who will now have more time on his hands and will not need to focus on the road always. Adient’s seating technology has been modified to move with the times. In an autonomous car, when the vehicle door is opened, the seat would greet the driver and adapt itself to his requirements. As many as 15 innovations have been integrated into the current Adient luxury seating concept for autonomous driving systems.

Even before autonomous vehicles became all the rage, Adient, which is a spinoff from the multinational conglomerate Johnson Controls and is one of the global leaders in the field of automotive seating, has been exploring new design options when it came to the seating and the interiors.

At the conference, Adient used its AI17 seating demonstrator to showcase its concept within a realistic vehicle interior. The AI17 was first revealed to the public for the first time in January at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. The concept serves to show the effect the advent of autonomous driving will have on the driver and passenger experience in a premium vehicle.