Seat Maker Adient Partners With Mobility R&D Center

Automotive seating supplier Adient announces it has become a partner with the American Center for Mobility, which operates a nonprofit testing, education and product-development facility for future mobility in Southeast Michigan.

“Adient’s partnership with the American Center for Mobility furthers our commitment to developing safety and mobility standards for autonomous vehicles,” Bruce McDonald, chairman and CEO of Adient, says in a news release. “The Center provides us with a safe environment in which to test our future mobility technologies.”

Through its collaboration with ACM, Adient will continue its development of new innovations, technologies and seating configurations for future mobility vehicles.

“We are thrilled to welcome Adient as our newest partner and to support the innovative work they are doing,” says John Maddox, president and CEO of ACM. “I admire their forward thinking as they design their seating technologies around the comfort and safety of passengers, which are critical aspects for acceptance of automated vehicles.”

ACM, located in Ypsilanti, MI, has a 2.5-mile (4-km) highway loop and various road layouts for connected and automated vehicle testing. One of 10 U.S. Department of Transportation-designated Automated Vehicle Proving Grounds in the U.S., it is designed to enable safe validation and self-certification of connected and automated vehicle technology and to accelerate the development of voluntary standards.

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