The new Hyundai Ioniq 5’s means to cost at as much as 350 kW is one in all its coolest, and most helpful options. Discover a fast sufficient charger to utilize that max charging charge and you’ll add 68 miles of driving in 5 minutes, or fill the battery from 10-80 per cent in 18 minutes.

However that’s nonetheless far longer than it takes to refill an ICE automotive with a contemporary tank of gasoline, so one of many Ioniq’s many different cool options is its specially designed reclining seats that allow you to lie again and unwind whereas the automotive is taking up a contemporary cost.

We’ve already seen photos of a blissed-out feminine mannequin having fun with the seat within the promotional photos, however now we all know why she seems to be so relaxed. As a result of whereas Hyundai’s N performance develops its seats based mostly on expertise gained on the Nürburgring, the Ioniq’s engineers turned to NASA for assist with their chairs.

In response to inside Hyundai paperwork, the Ioniq 5’s driver’s seat was designed on the subject of a NASA research titled ‘Analysis of Impartial Physique Posture on Shuttle Mission STS-57 (SPACEHAB-1)’ and printed in 2003.

Associated: America’s 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 Detailed, Here’s Everything You Need To See And Know

Impartial physique posture (NBP) is the posture the human physique assumes in microgravity, and was first documented by NASA in the early Seventies because it investigated how you can make spacecraft not simply protected, however snug, for astronauts. Photographs taken on board Skylab, NASA’s first area station, confirmed the physique’s limbs would robotically assume sure angles relative to the physique.

And whereas driving an electrical automotive down the freeway or by metropolis visitors isn’t anyplace close to as robust in your physique as being in area, which NASA’s 2003 report says can have many nasty uncomfortable side effects from muscle atrophy to area movement illness, being snug behind the wheel means you’ll drive extra safely and really feel much less drained whenever you get to your vacation spot.

A Hyundai spokesman instructed Carscoops that the Ioniq 5’s seats had been “undoubtedly impressed by NASA’s concept, however it’s Hyundai’s ergonomic engineering that decided the parameters and execution.”

It’s attention-grabbing to notice that the Ioniq 5 isn’t the primary automotive to profit from NASA’s zero gravity analysis. Hyundai’s eighth-generation Sonata is accessible with a Consolation Seat that reclines and tilts right into a zero gravity place on the contact of a button. Maybe barely awkwardly, within the wake of the entire #metoo thing, the driving force has his personal button to regulate the passenger seat from the opposite facet of the automotive.

And Nissan drivers have additionally benefitted from NASA’s information. Beginning in 2005, Nissan’s engineers started utilizing NASA’s NBP analysis to develop a new range of car seats that would scale back driver fatigue. Nissan realised that the physique naturally slumps to cut back fatigue, however that causes the backbone to bend, placing strain on the decrease again, and resulting in much more fatigue.

Nissan’s answer was a seat with 14 strain factors that may put your physique in a impartial place. By 2007 it proved {that a} prototype seat diminished exhaustion throughout lengthy distance freeway drives by 50 per cent. And 5 years later it made its debut on the 2013 Altima earlier than spreading to other Nissan cars.