Ford Patent Shows Reconfigurable Seats for Autonomous Cars

One of the things that I am looking forward to the most about autonomous cars is the ability to pay more attention to the people you are with and the sights you see during long road trips. I’d love to be able to play games with my kids rather than being focused on the road the entire time.

Ford has filed a patent application for a reconfigurable seat system that may one day come to autonomous vehicles, and thus make it easier for the no longer preoccupied driver and passengers to interact.

In one proposed example, the seats are able to swivel and fold with a retracting steering column to give more space inside the car. The front seats rotate to face the rear seat passengers allowing the front and rear seat passengers to face each other, and rear seat passengers can fold the front seats and have a comfortable footrest.