BMW’s New Seat Design Is Weird But Wonderful

There are lots of important things to consider when you buy a car. It has to be the right price, have room for everyone, and hopefully enough power to put a smile on your face. It also needs to be comfortable, especially if you spend long hours behind the wheel. What is comfortable for an hour or two may be torture after four or five hours of driving. BMW has solved that problem, and they solved it so well, they won an award.

The BMW M Visionary Materials Seat received the Enlighten Award in the Sustainable Process category at the 2024 Center for Automotive Research Seminar. Those are a lot of words to recognize something as simple as a seat, but this is no ordinary seat. It’s unlike any other both in materials and design.

It Looks Like Odd, But Feels Wonderful

Looking at the seat frame and catching it in glimpses through its trimmings, this looks like it should be uncomfortable. The design looks less like a chair and more like some kids construction project designed to encourage creativity. It sort of is that last bit, as designing this chair forced BMW’s team to come up with new ways to tackle a multitude of problems. And as weird as this chair looks, making sure it was comfortable was also a priority.

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The goal was to design a product focused on sustainability with a lightweight construction and a reduced carbon footprint. Sustainability is key for many automakers. It’s how Genesis turned newspaper and stone into beautiful interiors. Even tires can be made from sustainable materials. BMW sees sustainability as essential to the future of the industry and this chair was a way to explore the possibilities. To that end, the design includes plant-based materials along with secondary raw materials to increase its recyclability. It makes use of natural fiber, fiber composites, leather alternatives, and even algae-based polymers.

Materials Are Sustainable And The Construction Itself Is Unique

It also has a 90 percent lower carbon footprint compared to the BMW M carbon bucket seats that the company uses today in vehicles including the M3 and M4. This was achieved through the use of ultra-light, robotically-wound fiber composite seat support structures. The interior components of the seat are even arranged in such a way as to make them easier to recycle.

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While these seats aren’t something you’ll find in a vehicle today, they are an example of the future design goals of BMW and they provide an education for the design team. It’s a learning by doing approach that allows for experimentation and the exploration of what could be one day. Roberto Rossetti, Head of Development Total Vehicle-Lifecycle at the BMW Group explained, “The data obtained provides new insights, both in terms of today’s negative contributing factors and the design of tomorrow’s processes. This experience provides a solid foundation for continuously improving sustainability and developing innovative solutions for forward-thinking mobility.”