i3 - January/February 2020 - 35

"We're looking at seats as the cradle of
experience in the car," says John
A look at
Absmeier, chief technology officer at
Faurecia's vehicle
Lear Corp., headquartered in Southfield,
cockpit of the
future.
MI. Thus, he says, Lear is exploring "the
new SaaS business model: Seat as a
Service," which brings content and functionality that can be delivered on
demand, provided as an option at the
time of use instead of at the time of sale.
"If you think about the content that
we put in seats today, like massage,
heating and cooling and connectivity -
most of those things are a one-time sale"
when the vehicle is ordered and built,
Absmeier says. "In the future, it would
make sense to put all of the content in
these shared vehicles - that are going
to be used for different use cases, for different consumers - and then it can be
monetized an as-a-service business
model," he says. "You might have landed in Arizona and it's very
hot so you might be willing to pay a little bit of an upgrade
charge to ride in a car with a cooled seat."
Lear's SoundZone technology integrates Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth in a seat for connecting a personal device and using
that to listen to streamed music, have a private conversation
or watch a video.

BYTON AT CES 2020

BYTON is unveiling a production-ready version
of its semi-autonomous battery-electric SUV,
the M-Byte, first shown as a concept at CES
2018. The interior's technology fittings remain
entirely true to the original plan. But some surprises are to be revealed, too, promises Andre
Nitze-Nelson, director of future digital product
experience at BYTON.
"The idea is to build and develop a platform
in two ways. One is the platform as a car," NitzeNelson says, and the other is a "digital product."
He says, "it must be scalable and designed in
a way that it will work in the future without redesigning the entire architecture." And to that
end, he says the vehicle's interior and HMI (human-machine interface) was designed around
the notion that "everyone in the car is an equal
user," and that the "driver" will eventually be relegated to the dustbin of history.
The front seats rotate inward 12 degrees to
facilitate conversations - a pioneering feature
in the auto industry that required collaboration
with the seat supplier, Nitze-Nelson notes. The
unique 48-inch wide curved Shared Experience Display (SED) sits atop the dashboard
C TA . t e c h / i 3

A coming Lear seat enhancement adds sensors to
the car seat that allow it to adjust itself in response
to the user's perceived needs. "It's understanding
your muscles, and your movements, and potential
discomfort situations," Absmeier explains. "It's also
understanding driving conditions," including
whether the road is bumpy or there are curves, and
how long the driver has been sitting and the implications this has for blood circulation. Consequently, he
says, the seat may alter its own lumbar support or
side bolster, or even recline or raise its backrest "to
make you remain comfortable, in many cases before
you go to adjust it yourself."
This ties into another concept for future car interiors, which is smart surfaces that can act as controllers or sensors. Those coming proactive comfort
sensors potentially may be radio frequency-based
heart rate or respiration monitors built into a seat.
Similarly, Absmeier says Lear is working on ways to
integrate lighting in seats that would help to alleviate
motion sickness in a car.
Lear is a dominant player in the automotive seating business. It generates $16 billion of annual revenue in the category by providing everything from
structure through foam, trim and surface material
to final assembly.

and is composed of three segments for consuming content. It's
not a touchscreen; its controller is
an eight-inch touchpad mounted
in the center console between
the front seats, which is easily
accessible to the front
passengers.
Of course, there are
driver-centric features
and controls, including
a seven-inch steering
wheel-mounted tablet that can be navigated
with thumb swipes. It functions as the driver's
SED controller and provides access to the vehicle's infotainment system but can also double as a "consumption display" when parked,
Nitze-Nelson says.
BYTON ID is a cloud-based account that lets
anyone bring their personal vehicle settings
to any BYTON vehicle anywhere - a concept
that is tailored to BYTON vehicles used by carsharing or ride-hailing services.
"Imagine you have access to something
which tracks your movement or activities,"

he says.
"Now you
connect these
two accounts and your BYTON ID allows full
access even in a car you do not own. You
jump in a car, we have facial recognition, we
can recognize you and if so, your user profile
unfolds in that very moment. "
The vehicle on display at BYTON's booth is
"a representation" of the model that will go on
sale in the U.S. next year, but it is 99.9% accurate, and what may change won't be noticeable to a casual observer, Nitze-Nelson says.
Visitors can interact with both the actual vehicle and a "buck" in which they can sit and explore the SED's functions for themselves.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

https://cta.tech/i3

i3 - January/February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of i3 - January/February 2020