Volvo has unveiled the Excellence Child Seat Concept, which is a new, luxurious way for children to travel within cars.
The design team of Volvo has reimagined how children can travel safely in the future, with the unveiling of the concept coming after the latest announcement of the XC90 Excellence Lounge Console Concept.
"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," said Volvo Cars Concept and Monitoring Centre Chief Designer of Interiors Tisha Johnson,
Johnson added that the design team focused on three important factors, namely making it easier for parents to get children strapped into and taken out of the child safety seat from both a comfort and ergonomic view, giving the child a rear-facing and safe seating position which will allow the driver or the rear passenger to keep eye contact with the child, and providing enough room for important accessories for children such as bottles and diapers.
Johnson said that the idea for the Excellence Child Seat Concept started during a conversation with Li Shufu, the owner of Volvo Cars, while he was reviewing the XC90 Excellence Lounge Console Concept. Shufu thought on how the space that is created by removing the seat of the front passenger. The design team then accepted the challenge, and in the process, thought of a new way for children to travel within Volvo cars.
The Excellence Child Seat Concept gives the parent the option to swivel the child seat while placing the child inside it, and then locking the seat in a rear-facing position once the child is secured. Small items can be placed in the storage space beside the child seat and in the storage space underneath it.
The concept is based on Volvo's findings that small children can safely travel by facing the rear of the vehicle, primarily because of the lack of strength of the muscles in the neck of small children and the disproportionate size of the child's head and weight compared to the body.
"For us the safety, convenience, and emotional factors outweigh everything else," Johnson said, adding that the alternative arrangements in seating for passengers will become more important as the industry moves further towards the development of self-driving cars.
