Lightweight 20lb seats coming to a race car near you

[rmay635703]

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?

[Ecky]

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.

[redpoint5]

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.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

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.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

You know the laws that prevent Toyota from gluing an 18lb semi flexible solar panel to the roof sheet metal...

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.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

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

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

[redpoint5]

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.

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

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

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?

[redneck]

.

Gordon Murray Design (GMD) also has designed a seat that weighs less than 12 kg (26.5 lb) and is said to need only “ultra-low” tooling costs for simple and quick assembly.

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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[redpoint5]

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