Do fragrant car interiors make scents? Is it time to wave goodbye to gesture control? Are vegan car interiors really the new cool? Until recently, most cars were designed from the outside-in, but increasingly, designers say the whole car is being planned around the interior. Continuing just-auto/AIC’s series of research snapshots, Matthew Beecham reviews some trends and recent innovations in the interiors department. Are you sitting comfortably?

Do fragrant car interiors make scents? Is it time to wave goodbye to gesture control? Are vegan car interiors really the new cool? Until recently, most cars were designed from the outside-in, but increasingly, designers say the whole car is being planned around the interior.  Continuing just-auto/AIC’s series of research snapshots, Matthew Beecham reviews some trends and recent innovations in the interiors department. Are you sitting comfortably?

Fragrant car interiors make scents

Fragranced cabin diffusers fitted as original equipment for personalised ambience are gradually permeating down the car segments.  As new forms of mobility emerge (car-pooling, ridesharing, autonomous vehicles), the car interior is increasingly becoming a living space in its own right, meaning comfort is no longer seen as a simple matter of ergonomics and climate control.

Fragrance diffusers are not new, however. In 2015, Opel introduced an innovation on the then new Astra model that helps to make the cabin “a warm and welcoming personal wellness oasis”. An equipment option is Opel’s ‘AirWellness’ aroma system.

Luxury car models offer a little more, of course. The Mercedes-Maybach GLS offers a dedicated fragrance as part of the optional Air-Balance package. In a gem extracted from the carmaker’s press release, they describe the car’s fragrance as “white osmanthus blossom, floral and light, is rounded off by a gentle leather note and spicy tea.”

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights just how important vehicle hygiene is for the entire mobility industry. For its part, Yanfeng Technology has developed an antimicrobial device that can be integrated into the headliner console and uses UV light to disinfect the air and surfaces in the vehicle interior. Its Wellness Pod offers four different scent cartridges, with fragrances that can be individually selected.

While some automakers are integrating fragrance diffusers as OE fitment, it’s still patchy and slow to catch on. If ridesharing maintains momentum in a post COVID-19 world, we could see innovations such as Yanfeng’s scent-based Wellness Pod used more to help kill germs and fragrance the cabin.

Is it time to wave goodbye to gesture control?

If you like the idea of talking to your car to operate various functions, there are a number of cars out there that allow you to wave and take a swipe at it. Given that prodding and pinching at a touchscreen while driving can be distracting, using hand gestures and even eye movements to control climate and switch radio channels is seen by some as the next best thing. But is it really?

Markus Schupfner, chief technology officer of Visteon told just-auto: “The technology is mature enough, but the question is how will it be deployed? We – as an industry – should avoid adopting technology for the sake of the technology, but rather, identify ways in which the technology can be adopted to solve a real problem for users. The slow uptake on this technology can be attributed to end-users having to learn and remember a new way to interact with the car. Is it easier and more natural? Does it reduce driver distraction? If you answer yes to these questions, then it is a proper solution. But often this is not the case. We are not seeing a rush to adopt this technology beyond niche applications.”

Mercedes-Benz interior designers break new ground with every model. To learn how they achieve it and what inspires them, we caught up with Hartmut Sinkwitz, head of Mercedes-Benz interior design. We also asked for his thoughts on gesture controls. “I have been very fascinated about this opportunity and we’re the first to bring the gesture control idea into the automotive context. Although we have worked a lot on this idea, we realise that it is not the best one. It is nice to add a few functions, to also experience the high tech feeling again that maybe the hand will be seen and you can even get some interaction before really touching. So some highlights can be nice but I would never build a complete interface on gesture control. I believe we have inspired BMW to be the first with the gestures in the production car, while we discussed in-house that we think this is not the best way or, let’s say, not so important.”

Automakers cotton onto vegan-friendly interior options

According to The Vegan Society, the number of vegans in the UK quadrupled between 2014 and 2019. While some leading fashion brands have cottoned onto this movement by giving up leather, premium carmakers have been quick to offer vegan-friendly interior options with some planning to phase out leather altogether.

Among those promoting the use of non-animal leathers include the likes of Jaguar Land Rover, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo. For example, the Porsche Taycan 4S comes as standard with a part-leather interior. Buyers can pay more for a non-leather vegan option using leather-free artificial fabrics and coverings, including a floor covering made from recycled fishing nets.

Mid-range segments also offer vegan-friendly interiors. The VW Golf entry-level S trim is fitted with cloth seats, non-leather steering wheel and gear knob as standard – with no leather option. Further down the car segments, the Ford Fiesta has a number of options for non-leather seats.

For car interiors, coconut fibre seat pads have been used in order to meet manufacturers’ economic and ecological objectives while contributing to sustainability. For example, Mercedes-Benz uses coconut matting, crushed olive stones and even sawdust in certain vehicles. The crushed, carbonised olive stones are used as air filtration material inside the fuel tanks of C- and S-Class models – greatly reducing petrol vapour smells when refuelling. Then there are abaca fibres – from the stem of a banana-type plant grown in the Philippines. These fibres are used in the underfloor cladding of A- and B-class cars. Sisal fibres are also used in Mercedes-Benz door panels and seatback lining.

Ford has made some headway using bio-based materials in its vehicles. The automaker has been active in biomaterials since the 1920s when Henry Ford used wheat straw. Ford is using soy-based polyurethane foams for seat cushions and seatbacks on a range of models, including the Mustang, Expedition, F-150, Focus, Escape, Escape Hybrid, Mercury Mariner and Lincoln Navigator and Lincoln MKS. Lear has also worked with Ford to introduce a head restraint foam that has 25 per cent of the polyol replaced with soy.

Developments in vehicle seating have been taking place much faster than may be apparent on the surface. OEMs are demanding greater differentiation in their seat designs, customers want ever more luxury, and ergonomists are understanding more and more about what the human frame needs, in order to be comfortable.

It is certainly true that people are spending far longer sitting in their cars, often stuck on congested roads. Aside from seating ergonomics, a great deal of work is focused on different seat fabrics, creating more breathable or more waterproof surfaces, and even adding sensors designed to monitor driver well-being.

With the accent on tomorrow’s car interior is focussed on occupant comfort and health, how will that impacts on seat design? We put that question to Dirk Brassat, Vice President of R&D – Faurecia Seating North America. “For the past few years, we’ve been exploring how to monitor and detect driver stress and drowsiness by sensors integrated into seats.  In the end, this will give consumers vehicles with the ability to monitor a driver’s health and comfort on a whole new level, and react based on those conditions.”

It is also clear that interiors must appeal to people of all shapes and sizes. Not only is there the challenges of defining comfort levels, there are also cosmetic questions of colour and trim, the covering materials used, durability, use of child seats, headrests and overall seating arrangement. Seats are also becoming safer yet lighter and slimmer.

Automotive acoustics is not just about laying better quality carpets or inventing ways of applying foam.  An acoustic system takes into account everything in the cabin, from the dashboard to package trays.

The Kia Rio is a case in point. It has a relatively quiet cabin – even on motorways – partly due to the installation of an elongated upper cowl panel and thermoplastic elastomer materials on the dash. Road noise has also been reduced by fitting a reinforcing bracket to increase the structural rigidity of the front subframe. The cowl top panel and kick panel between the rear seats have been reshaped to reduce noise radiation, while five rubber seals in the pillars on each side of the car provide further insulation against outside noise. 

The second-generation Honda HR-V is designed to appeal to young singles and pre-family couples. Its rivals include the popular yet quirky Nissan Juke and Kia Soul. Our press review Honda HR-V was quiet (for a diesel), partly thanks to some refinements to the cabin acoustics.  An acoustic insulation package was developed for the HR-V, featuring a non-woven underlay and sound-absorbing carpets of a type usually found in luxury motors. The front and rear inner wheel arches have been treated with sound-absorbent material, while the floor carpet, underfloor cover and dashboard acoustic pad inserts all contribute to dampening cabin noise. According to Honda, at a constant speed of 62mph, occupants can enjoy a “whisper-quiet 65 dB of cabin noise”. To be fair, that pretty much matched our experience.  

Not so long ago, car interior lighting consisted of central and side headliner lights, complemented by low-level ambient lighting located mainly in the cockpit area. Today, the accent has changed thanks to widespread use of LEDs enabling personalisation of car interiors. 

With the launch of the Mercedes-Benz B-Class in 2005 as a sports compact tourer, the automaker has sold more than 1.5 million models worldwide. And consumer demand has remained strong since deliveries of the third-generation B-Class began last year. As we would expect from Mercedes, the cockpit incorporates some classy materials and smart gadgets to define the luxury carmaker’s interior style. Beneath the swanky widescreen display (one half of which is a touchscreen) in the centre of the dash are three round air vents modelled on aeroplane turbines. Combining these chrome vents with the multi-coloured ambient lighting package provides showroom appeal in spades.

During night-time driving, the B-Class takes on an entirely different feel thanks to the ambient interior LED lighting that can be personalised using a palette of no fewer than 64 colours. It really does start to feel like a cockpit, adding illuminating highlights to the trim, central display, front stowage compartment on the centre console, handle recesses, door pockets, front and rear footwells, overhead control panel and even the door sills.

Nobody said it was easy

Stroll into any international auto show and it doesn’t take long before you’ll come across an electrically-driven cube-on-wheels without a steering wheel intended to give us a glimpse of the future of transport. Although COVID-19 may have put the brakes on autonomous vehicle development – and our appetite to ever share one – a variety of autonomous vehicle interior concepts revealed over the past year indicate the direction in which the industry is heading. They also offer a window into how the driver’s seat could evolve from that intended to be used by a fully attentive driver to that of a ‘supervisor’ who will be prompted to intervene whenever necessary.

While Level 4 and 5 autonomous vehicles bring many opportunities to suppliers and OEMs in terms of being able to rethink the vehicle cabin, there are also many additional hurdles to overcome. Nobody said it was easy. For example, many of today’s well-understood safety parameters are formulated with the knowledge that the drivers and passengers will be forward-facing with three-point safety belts and other occupant restraint systems designed to these boundaries. Rearranging the vehicle cabin, at L4 autonomy and beyond, with a multitude of different seating arrangements introduces far more complexity to passive safety in the cabin and could mean that many of the OEMs’ and suppliers’ visions for future vehicle interiors are never fully realised. 

If and when cars appear on the road in a highly automated mode, driver monitoring will become even more significant. This explains the current focus on camera-based facial recognition technology.

While some car interior concepts are more out there than others, there are some common themes emerging, e.g. multi-screens, all-digital dashboards, personalisation, connectivity and the shared experience. Car interiors with split personalities are just around the corner. Automakers already talk of a virtual interior concept of an autonomous car, dividing the cabin into ‘private areas of retreat’ and ‘digital living spaces’ with lighting to suit the mood.

Connectivity between the vehicle, passengers and outside world is also key. High resolution, touch-sensitive and/or gesture recognition screens dotted around the cabin enable the occupants to work, rest and play. The possibilities for interaction seem endless.

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