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Gruesome or Groovy? Nissan's skin-like upholstery
Engineers are working on a material to reproduce the sensation of fingers touching the bodyThis is one of those stories set to delight hedonists who drive around naked, we guess. Nissan is embarked on a project – Premium-fEEL (PEEL) – to develop an upholstery material that recreates the comforting caress humans derive from the touch of fingers on skin.
According to online tech publication Gizmag, in-house research has found that people respond positively to the touch of fingers on bare skin and Nissan is translating this into seating material that will relax seat occupants on a drive. It's an initiative that has the potential to reduce road rage, presumably, but all the soft-touch sensuality in the world won't prevent the incandescent outpouring of cuss words when bare thighs make contact with the seat material after the car has been standing in 40-degree heat during a typical Aussie summer.
Gizmag quotes the cost of synthesised human skin at US$250,000 per square metre, which would make it prohibitively expensive in the context of vehicle production – and there are obvious legal ramifications in using the genuine article – which is why Nissan is flirting with a semi-aniline leather with the appropriate fingerprint texture safeguarded by a "lightly pigmented" coating.
In a world where the brain synapses are not always connected the same way, perhaps there's a market for other sensual seating experiences – orange rind, for example, or the obvious choice, latex...
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