Lightweight 20lb seats coming to a race car near you
 

https://www.sae.org/news/2018/10/gor...20&bid=2296564

I doubt we will ever see any of this in a normal car but we can dream of full size 1800lb cars can’t we?

Pretty light. I think my Insight's seats were around 30lbs, but they were terribly uncomfortable.

Overall the specs of his sports car sound similar to my Insight after the engine swap - just south of 1900lbs and north of 200hp, with 20 year old technology in all of it. I guess the trick is making it affordable.

Not really that impressed. The rear seat bottom for my Prius weighs like 2 pounds.

In high school we made a seat for our EV out of nylon fabric and attached it to existing frame members. That weighed under a pound.

His goal though is to follow the standards required to meet crash tests

You know the laws that prevent Toyota from gluing an 18lb semi flexible solar panel to the roof sheet metal but allow the owner to put on a 200lb roof rack with a canoe on top.

I think that has more to do with the laws of physics & economics, than it does with government regulations.

Anyway, what's so great about 20 lbs seats? I think Lotus has them, plus a number of aftermarket brands like Recaro.

Those laws of physics allow the $140 panel to be glued on in Japan though

As I've said elsewhere, I'm not entirely against regulation, but there should be options available that are not government regulated so long as it's clearly made known that the product has not been certified, and that the owner assumes a higher level of responsibility.

I'm still not impressed by a 20 lb chair, even if it meets crash regs. Heck, that's about the weight of the frame of our entire EV car.

Besides all that, electric drive trains are making it less important to reduce weight for efficiency sake. You can put very powerful motors in a compact space to propel a heavy vehicle, and you can capture much of that energy in regen when bringing it to a stop.

That's not to say weight isn't important, it's just less important than other things.

12.2 pounds. The seatbacks, left and right, weigh a combined 39.6 lbs. So, that's 17.7 lbs per person in back. Why not just make front seats the same way?

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This seat is 24 lbs.

https://www.jegs.com/i/Scat/942/80-1...CABEgIP-_D_BwE

There are a lot of light weight seats.

Comfort and safety however are not necessarily mutual.

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Which is generally lighter weight; manual seats, or electric?

They are the worst! It's like public transportation or amusement park seats meant to last many riders while not being hard plastic. I definitely remember them being over 30lbs and closer to mid 30s.

20lbs is pretty light for a seat that is supported by a base, but it's not that hard to do. I think OMP seats are the cheapest FIA approved seats and the fiberglass ones come in at 23lbs. The carbon fiber ones come in under 15.

I still wish more companies would do the cushion on frame seat, I find all the adjustability in fancy new cars to be pretty silly. The most comfortable position is where you're leaned back a good amount, the knees are pointed slightly upward, and you can reach the pedals and wheel comfortably. The LaFerrari does this with moving pedal box, and I think the Ford GT has a normal bucket seat bolted straight in with moving pedal box (the rear of the seat is probably hooked into the roll cage I'm guessing so it's not dead weight).

I can't sit in a car with the seat tilted back, it hurts my lower back. I need to be mostly upright. A more flat seat bottom also helps.

Swapping the seats out from my Insight got me the adjustability I needed to prevent backaches when driving, at the cost of added weight.

Some people need the adjustability, such as seat height, to see out properly. I'm tall so I always lower the seat down to lower the center of gravity. I sit upright for better posture and to keep my back happy.

Wait, sitting upright is comfortable for you guys even for long distance? I find the pressure on my lower spine starts killing me if I am sitting upright. I always adjust seats as if I'm in a racing bucket, because that's the only way I can sit in a car for a long period of time without back pain.

Reclined doesn't mean bad posture in a car, I think...the seat is supporting you, engaging muscles for a long period of time would be bad. It's different from sitting in an office chair designed for sitting upright in, where you can get up and move around frequently.

I have a light scoliosis, I need to sit upright as that engages the back muscles which help align the vertebra. I'm used to it now, I cannot drive long distances in anyone else's car if the seat is reclined. I need it up.

The best position for your back while sitting down is the same as while standing up: straight up. Any other position puts a lateral force on the intervertebral discs. Not just in the office, but anywhere.