Maintaining a comfortable body temperature when driving is very important. Nothing more annoying than driving our vehicle feeling very hot or very cold, and for the latter in particular, various options have been created, ranging from the most basic, such as general heating, to specific elements such as heated steering wheels or seats.
Now, the German company ZF, renowned for its transmissions, took on the task of inventing something new, heated seat belts. The idea seems strange, this development presented at CES 2023 seems to many people something that cannot be useful, however it is a quite intelligent creation.
What are heated seat belts for?
Let’s go through the basics first. Heating a vehicle requires a lot of energy.. In internal combustion vehicles, the heat is obtained through a radiator used for heating, or in more basic cases, directly using the heat generated by the engine. But in electric vehicles generating heat takes another dimension, since it is not usually an efficient process and large amounts of energy are required, which is quite precious to maintain the range of autonomy.
According to ZF, heated seat belts can increase the range of electric vehicles. According to the brand’s engineers, the system can increase range by up to 15 percent by reducing the energy required to heat the vehicle’s interior quickly.
The idea is that when a belt is warming the upper body and pelvic area, vehicle occupants are allowed to feel at a comfortable temperature more quickly. If you add to this heated steering wheel and seats, it is no longer so necessary to heat all the air in the cabin. Thanks to that, battery current that would have been diverted to heat the cabin is generally reserved for propulsion and range is increased.
How do they work?
To warm the seat belt, it is they weave small conductive cables as if they were threads in the structure of the belt. The contact elements of the electrical heating circuits are placed in such a way that they do not interfere with the operation of the safety device, since if we are talking about occupant protectionheated belts are no different from conventional systems, says ZF.
According to ZF, heated seat belts are already in demand by electric car manufacturers, so expected to hit the market sooner rather than later. Would you like to have them for the winter?
