What if your most precious cargo – your infant or toddler – could travel in virtual safety in cars of the future? Volvo USA played footage of its Lounge Counsel Concept during a media reception at the New York Auto Show that showed how a swivel seat could replace the front passenger seat.
The child could be strapped safely in a rearward facing position while small items could be stored beside the seat and underneath with space for diapers, blankets and toys. An onboard cup warmer could heat the bottle to delight the young charge.
Chinese Investment Showing Results
The Volvo design team, first unveiled the child seat at the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition. Volvo is owned by Geely, a Chinese auto maker that is apparently putting huge amounts of money into Volvo’s future based on the products and concepts being rolled out.
Tisha Johnson, chief designer of interiors at Volvo Cars Concept and Monitoring Center took the lead. “We started by asking ourselves if we could make life easier for parents and safer for their children when it comes to the child seat experience,” Johnson said. “We focused on three key benefits – making it easier to get the child into and out of the child seat from an ergonomic and comfort perspective, providing the child with a safe rearward facing seating position that enables it to keep eye-contact with either the driver or the rear passenger and of course including enough storage for those vital child accessories, such as diapers, bottles, wipes, and so on.”
The project started when Volvo owner Li Shufu raised the question of a child seat by asking what a front passenger seat could be used for instead of transporting an average sized passenger.
Johnson’s team at Volvo Cars took on the challenge and in the process re-imagined the way in which small children can travel. The new seat could function upright so a parent sitting in a rear seat could make eye contact with the child, or the infant could safely lean back and sleep.
Volvo, one of the industry’s leaders in safety innovation, said in a press release that the company believes small children should travel rearward facing as long as possible – at least up to age three or four because young ones lack the muscle strength in their necks and have a disproportionate head size and weight in relation to the body.
Alternate seating concepts are part of Volvo’s research into how human beings will reside inside cars and trucks when fully autonomous vehicles come to market.
