After years of boasts over the increasing measurement of their infotainment screens, automakers appear to have collectively moved on to a brand new measuring contest with which to extol their very own virtues: third-row actual property.

Throughout the trade, there’s now a rising listing of rising crossovers and SUVs — autos that both had three rows and at the moment are including inches particularly for his or her third-row seating, or long-standing two-row autos which are rising to seven-seaters from 5.

Like most issues within the trade, the explanation comes all the way down to cash: Shopper demand for three-row autos is rising general, and, based on executives from a number of automakers, including extra legroom to third-row seats is among the many finest methods an automaker could make some extra cash with little further funding.

It is “top-of-the-line returns on funding within the trade,” one automaker govt, who didn’t need to be recognized, advised Automotive Information, “as a result of I can add primarily just a few inches of sheet metallic” with only a few different adjustments to the opposite parts of a car and cost extra.

The listing of automakers that both have added, are including or will add house to their three-row SUVs or crossovers is intensive and rising. Some examples:

• This yr, Toyota will introduce a brand new, bigger model of its standard Highlander crossover named the Grand Highlander, which does not go on sale till 2023. It will likely be in-built the identical Indiana meeting plant because the Highlander however differentiate itself largely by including inches to the third row. Toyota will even tackle the third row of its body-on-frame SUV, the Toyota Sequoia, as a part of its redesign onto the model’s new F1 platform this yr.
• For the 2021 mannequin yr, Normal Motors gave the third rows of its extremely worthwhile Cadillac Escalade, GMC Yukon and Chevrolet Suburban and Tahoe SUVs a significant improve by including 40 per cent extra legroom — about 10 inches — as a part of a redesign.
• Stellantis additionally acquired in on the pattern in 2021 with its addition — after nearly three a long time — of a third-row variant of its standard Jeep Grand Cherokee, in addition to with the return of the Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer nameplates.
• Although it would not verify it formally for the U.S., Audi final fall was noticed testing a bigger model of its three-row luxurious Q7 crossover in Germany, known as the Q9, which might immediately tackle a predominant shortcoming of the Q7 — third-row legroom. Sellers stated the Q9 is predicted to be in U.S. showrooms by 2026.

“There are at all times some engineering bills related, however in comparison with a full car program, these prices are fairly incremental in comparison with what you may cost for it,” defined Sam Abuelsamid, principal analysis analyst for Guidehouse Insights and a former automotive engineer. “For many autos, from the rear axle ahead, there are nearly no distinctive elements” wanted so as to add house to third-row seating.

Getting the third row proper from a measurement and packaging perspective is massively essential to automakers. In September, Volkswagen Group of America CEO Scott Keogh, and his boss, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess, mentioned with a bunch of journalists on the Munich auto present simply how essential third-row measurement was to the American market, particularly because it associated to VW’s upcoming ID6 electrical car, which Keogh believes is undersized for U.S. customers. VW will promote the three-row in China and plans to import the ID6 into Europe, however it isn’t anticipated to be offered within the U.S.

“We all know the [large crossover] phase fairly properly from the Atlas, and I can promise you, we are going to put [an EV] in that phase, that is for certain, so we have now plans. The ID6 is not fairly sized there,” Keogh stated in Munich.

“I just like the automotive. I believe it might go well with People, however ultimately, the choice is native,” Diess replied, Keogh. “It is promoting very properly in China.”

“It is a good automotive,” Keogh responded to his boss, “however it’s not fairly sized there.”

For automotive designers and engineers, third-row seating in crossovers and SUVs has been a piece in progress for greater than a decade, with the evolution nowhere extra obvious than with Jeep. The off-road model has remodeled its third-row providing from the famously “unfit for human consumption” 2010 Jeep Commander to relative minivan-levels of consolation within the 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee L.

The Commander “was how to not do a 3rd row,” recalled Ralph Gilles, now head of design at Stellantis. “We had that recent in our thoughts once we had been doing the [2014 Dodge] Durango and stuff like that.”

Gilles stated he and his design staff discovered classes from the Durango, particularly by way of third-row entry and exit in addition to having enough house for passengers’ ft — known as the “toe storage” — which have carried over into subsequent three-row designs comparable to for the Grand Cherokee L.

However, Gilles cautions, doing correct three-row seating in a crossover or SUV is not any easy matter of including inches.

“You do not need to make the automotive too lengthy; it begins to look humorous,” Gilles defined. “Shoppers need every part; they need the automotive to be good and tight on the skin however enormous on the within … so we ended up engaged on each part you may think about.”

The consequence, Gilles stated, was that the Grand Cherokee L is “perhaps an inch and a half longer than the Durango, however the rear legroom is considerably higher. The automotive is 2 inches decrease than the previous Durango, however the headroom is best. It is roughly the identical seating package deal, however the nip and tucks we labored on — the headpocket within the headliner, the place the hinges are — while you sit again there within the Grand Cherokee L, it is astonishing how good it’s.”

When GM redid its massive three-row SUVs for the 2021 mannequin yr, it additionally acquired artistic on how one can increase its second- and third-row seating past simply extending the sheet metallic or the wheelbase. A spokeswoman advised Automotive Information in an electronic mail that the automaker “used a steadiness of maximizing visibility and second- and third-row leg, shoulder and head room in every mannequin to create a extra spacious car. Just a few of the adjustments we included included shrink-wrapping the aspect wall trim and the headliner as near the sheet metallic as attainable and shrink-wrapping the seat plastics and seat backs nearer to the seat frames.”

Whereas automaker executives and product planners are eager to make their aft seating as luxurious and straightforward to entry as attainable, different limitations come into play to dampen their in any other case unvarnished enthusiasm for larger and higher. Weight, aerodynamics and gasoline economic system actually play a job, as do comparisons with minivans, which retain the trade crown as probably the most snug three-row folks haulers.

“Every little thing is simply simpler in a minivan,” defined Kevin Hunter, president of Toyota Motor Corp.’s North American design studio, Calty Design Analysis. “The packaging is simply higher; there’s extra room to do issues for entry/egress, the seating peak place.” Toyota redesigned its Sienna minivan in 2020 and is ending up closing touches on the Grand Highlander earlier than its debut this yr.

“We’re at all times attempting to get as a lot room as we will within the rear house, and it looks as if the demand for third-row seating autos is simply rising,” Hunter stated. “We’re at all times in search of methods to optimize not solely the seating place, however the roominess, and likewise the entry and egress into the third row — that at all times appears to be a reasonably large problem.”

Hunter’s staff at Calty should cope with an additional problem to aft seating that another automakers have but to come across: hybrid battery packs that may encroach on rear seating house.

Doing third-row seating proper is hard, Hunter stated. However third-row seating completed mistaken is worse: “I consider it as being within the penalty field … while you get again there for an extended journey or something.”

Hannah Lutz contributed to this report.