Volvo designs inflatable children's car seat
As parents know, children's car seats are usually bulky, heavy and awkward to carry around, to say the least.
Volvo is aiming to change that with its latest creation: an inflatable rear-facing child safety seat that fits into a backpack.
The Inflatable Child Seat Concept features an innovative pump system that inflates and deflates the chair in less than 40 seconds at the push of a button.
The seat can also be inflated by remote control, and at just 5kg, is much more portable than the average car seat.
Lawrence Abele, Design Manager at the Volvo Monitoring and Concept Center in Los Angeles, was inspired by his own children when designing the product.
"For me child safety is always the number one priority and when we lived abroad with two toddlers we had to haul bulky child seats through airports and then into taxis," he explains.
The chair is made from a special drop-stitch fabric common in boat construction that can be brought to a very high internal pressure.
Although previous manufacturers such as Easy Car Seat have experimented with inflated car seats, Volvo is believed to be the first to have developed a rear-facing version.
Details regarding the production of the Inflatable Child Seat Concept have yet to be released.
