Magna Awarded Reconfigurable Seating Business With Chinese OEM

• Innovative system offers two rows of seats on long rails with a fully rotating front row
• Flexible layout for more in-cabin space
• Award showcases local R&D, complete technology development, and production readiness

For more than 65 years, Magna has helped redefine the very concept of consumer experience and design in the vehicle. Today, the company has further advanced traditional in-cabin vehicle design with its first awarded contract to deliver a reconfigurable seating system to a Chinese OEM. This innovative technology offers fully rotating front seats paired with long rails, enabling a flexible layout for more in-cabin space.

Magna’s reconfigurable seating system allows the vehicle to adapt to the consumer, instead of forcing the consumer to adapt to the vehicle. The integration of power swivel seats with nearly two meters of power long rails, shared by front and rear rows and the center console, creates a 270-degree rotation of both the driver and front passenger seats. This configuration also increases the seat track articulation distance of both front and rear seats, resulting in a more versatile and adaptable seating arrangement to offer a tailored in-cabin experience.

The seats are equipped with an integrated seat belt designed to better cope with the strength and adjustment requirements in complex scenarios. A universal magnetic interface on the back of the seat can be connected to different external devices, which not only expands the functionality of the seat, but also provides a basis for entertainment experience.

Magna’s engineering team in China worked closely with the customer to explore future mobility ecology to better adapt to the local automotive market. By applying innovative technology based on customer-defined scenarios, the company was able to localize application updates for the reconfigurable seating system, such as parenting, long-distance travel, camping, and storage, to unlock more possibilities of the in-cabin space.

“The global mobility landscape is continuing to evolve, with vehicles increasingly becoming a flexible mobile living space for today’s road users,” said John Wyskiel, President Magna Seating. “With our strong R&D and innovation capabilities in China and around the world, we can respond quickly to the needs of our customers and create more localized innovative solutions to meet their expectations. The reconfigurable seating solution, which will be first applied in China, illustrates Magna's commitment to delivering cutting-edge technology and addressing the evolving demands of the industry.”

The reconfigurable seating system will be manufactured at a Magna facility in China, with mass production for the Chinese market scheduled to start in Q4 2024.