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How comfortable are the new 2024 Subaru Crosstrek seats? Subaru Corporation says they are completely redesigned for maximum riding comfort and used a medical approach in the redesign. So how did they make the seats the best?

Subaru Corporation Technology Headquarters Development Department Manager Masayoshi Saito says he was initially involved in the advanced development of the next-generation Crosstrek's dynamic performance and was working on development to improve ride comfort, mainly on the suspension.

He says, "If we pursue ride comfort, shouldn't we focus more on the seat that the customer touches first? So he took a medical approach and looked at the human body and how it assorts vibration from the car's suspension.

Saito says, "To create a comfortable seat, we first needed to know in detail what was going on with the human skeleton on the side of the seat."

At Gunma University, near Tokyo, Subaru started a joint course and enlisted the cooperation of a professor from the Faculty of Medicine, who gave them advice that if they could reduce the movement of the pelvis of the occupants, we could reduce body sway and improve ride comfort.

Based on medical advice regarding the human musculoskeletal system, Subaru used sensors and cameras to measure the movement of various parts of the human body, such as the legs, waist, upper body, and head, during driving.

As a result of the extensive study, Subaru found that the left and right shaking of the pelvis was transmitted to the upper body and even to the head. Shaking of the head leads to swaying of vision and swaying of the semicircular canals that control the sense of balance, which leads to deterioration of ride comfort, such as fatigue and sickness.

When engineers made a prototype seat, compared it with a conventional seat, and tested it with a vibrating machine, they found that the vibration level of both side-to-side sway and roll in the direction of rotation had decreased by nearly 40 percent.

Engineers put the remodeled seats in a next-generation Crosstrek, and the model equipped with the new seat was evaluated as providing less driver fatigue, especially during long-distance driving.

Subaru spent the time and money to hit a home run with the next-generation 2024 Crosstrek seats. As a result, you can drive further off the grid with the new subcompact SUV.

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Denis Flierl has invested over 30 years in the automotive industry in a consulting role working with every major car brand. He is an accredited member of the Rocky Mountain Automotive Press. Check out Subaru Report, where he covers all of the Japanese automaker's models. More stories can be found on the Torque News Subaru page. Follow Denis on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

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Photo credit: Subaru USA