2007 LA Auto Show: Faurecia Interior Concept

^M00:00:01 [ Music ] ^M00:00:04 >> Come with me for a little look at the future of style and technology; good design from the folks at Fauresia, the largest maker of instrument panels, seats and a lot of other components of cars but you wouldn't know their name because it's never on the part in the vehicle; but take my word on that. This is a mock up of what they call premium attitude. Look at this climate controller; it's mounted around the vent and it's over on the far side where each person is sitting; you go to where the airflow is and adjust it right there, it's very intuitive. They got rid of a structural crossbeam that most cars have, a big old piece of beam metal extruded across the middle that holds the car together. Here they made the instrument panel an actual structural member so it is the crossbeam while integrating the components they want so you get a lot of room. Now check this out; here's a button here labeled SMI--when I press that a display motors out of the center console, it's gonna cantilever up to me and what they envision this doing is inheriting the interface of my portable; so my iPhone interface would be here; my trio interface would show up here. This center console right here when I push this button opens up almost like a jewelry box, lined with a nice sort of a smooth leather and that would be a wireless charging pad to charge them while they are Bluetooth connected to the center display. One more tricky thing--over here I push this button and there's my glove box. Again, power actuated, lined with kid leather, and notice around the glove box this is all a thin veneer of wood. They said they've got a way to do wood veneer so thin, you'll get so much out of a piece of a tree, that you could do entire finishes like this economically. Now lest you think all the fun's taking place in the cockpit, look at this. Down here in the mirror do you see that shaped thing? That's a flat muffler. Why do you care about the shape of a muffler? Because if you don't make it like a canister, it doesn't stick up and take up real estate in the rear quarter of the car; that makes this possible, a pull out drawer almost the entire width of the rear transm; very nice for securing things or in my mind, very nice rolling wine cellar. Overall it's about a luxury statement that is both practical applied technology and understated elegance. It's restrained; they like to say it's very European. ^M00:02:19 [ Music ] ^M00:02:24