Makers of Self-Driving Cars Seek Ways To Lessen Passengers' Motion Sickness --- A promise of autonomous vehicles is that you can use your travel time to work or read -- things that worsen queasiness

“Makers of self-driving cars have focused on ways to keep passengers safe. But how do you keep them from getting sick?

 

Roughly 1 in 3 adults and half of all children are considered highly susceptible to motion sickness, which can be triggered by all sorts of things, such as riding backward and sniffing certain smells.

 

What's more, passengers are much more likely to get it than drivers. In large part, that is because they don't have control of the car, so they can't anticipate all the moves it will make and adjust their bodies accordingly. Their senses tell their body to expect one thing, but the car does another.

 

That is a problem for the autonomous-car business -- because everyone is a passenger, and nobody continuously controls the car. What's more, one of the big promises of autonomous vehicles is that you can use your travel time to work, read or take in a movie. Those are precisely the things that can make motion sickness worse.

 

To keep motion sickness from becoming an obstacle to a self-driving-car future, companies and researchers are working on ways to make rides smoother and less triggering for passengers. They are trying everything from minimizing erratic driving behavior during the ride to changing the interior design of the cabin to make it as stomach-friendly as possible.

 

Investigating solutions to motion sickness is essential to ensuring widespread adoption of self-driving cars, says Sam Abuelsamid, an automotive technology analyst and vice president of market research for Telemetry in Novi, Mich.

 

To be sure, most of the developments are being rolled out in conventional vehicles first -- there aren't a ton of self-driving cars out there -- but the designs may eventually play a role in making autonomous cars more attractive to the public.

 

Here's a look at some of the ways car companies are trying to keep people from getting queasy in self-driving cars.

 

Rethinking the interior

 

Target No. 1: the design of car cabins. Consider Waymo, an autonomous-driving technology company that offers ride-hailing trips in self-driving taxis. Motion sickness "has been a big part of what we've been designing for," says Megan Neese, the company's head of customer-product research.

 

Among other things, Waymo made all seats face forward. Being able to see in the direction you're moving greatly helps avoid motion sickness, Neese says.

 

Waymo also provides riders with a screen that shows what the car's sensors are picking up. That means passengers have the same superhuman view of pedestrians, cars and cyclists that the Waymo Driver does.

 

"You're not physically in control, but the screens help you understand and anticipate what the car is going to do to navigate the traffic ahead," Neese says.

 

Another angle of attack: Instead of just giving passengers a better view of what the automated driver might do, teach the automated driver itself to make better driving decisions in the first place. May Mobility, an autonomous-vehicle-technology company, soon will be deploying its vehicles on Lyft and Uber platforms. The company's technology predicts thousands of potential actions every second that pedestrians, bikers and other drivers might take, and uses that information to optimize the car's automated maneuvers to avoid motion sickness -- such as cutting down on uncomfortable accelerations, sharp turns and braking that jolts riders.

 

Making seats smarter

 

For some companies, beating motion sickness means redesigning the hardware that passengers use the most: the seats. For instance, the startup Motion Sync offers an AI-powered system called PreAct to predict the car's motion, like turning, braking and acceleration. Then multiple vibration motors in the seat cushion buzz, alerting passengers to these changes so they can prepare themselves.

 

A version that can be retrofitted into existing cars -- traditional and autonomous -- is expected to be on the market within a year, says Shorya Awtar, a professor of engineering at the University of Michigan who developed the technology.

 

Separately, Awtar says that the company is also working with an automaker on an active tilting seat. It will start to lean in the direction of a turn automatically, preventing a passenger's body from being moved in the opposite direction. It is expected to hit the market within a few years.

 

Along similar lines, automotive supplier Bosch is working to reduce a vehicle's roll motion during cornering. As a vehicle rounds a corner, its body leans outward and sways. Bosch's vehicle-motion management can reduce this rotation and keep the vehicle body stable, alleviating motion sickness. "By actively managing factors such as acceleration, braking and cornering forces, we can significantly reduce the physical sensations that contribute to motion sickness," says Niccolo Haegele, Bosch's project house leader for vehicle motion management.

 

The technology is already integrated into many conventional production vehicles -- Haegele won't disclose which brands -- and he sees significant potential for it to be on fully autonomous vehicles in the future.

 

Goodbye, bounces and bad vibes

 

Also in development: mechanical changes to other parts of the car to smooth out the ride. ClearMotion, a suspension-development company in Billerica, Mass., has a design with actuators on each wheel that use a pump to provide vertical force. That way, the suspension can counteract bumps and other road conditions that could move the vehicle up or down, easing motion sickness. In March, the technology was rolled out in a conventional car in China, the NI0 ET9. Marco Giovanardi, a technical fellow with ClearMotion, says the company hopes to bring the system to the U.S. as well, for both regular and autonomous vehicles.

 

Jaguar Land Rover is also trying to smooth out a ride through tech: The "Body and Soul" seats in its Range Rover SV and Defender OCTA models try to counteract the motions of a vehicle.

 

Passengers are at risk of motion sickness because there can be a disconnect between what they feel and what they see when they are riding in a car. One cause of that disconnect: vibrations. The car's movement can create vibrations in people's ears and vestibular systems that confuse the senses and may lead to motion sickness.

 

The Body and Soul seats -- currently just in conventional vehicles -- counter those vibrations by essentially broadcasting vibrations of its own through speakers in the seat, masking the sensations of the car's motion. The speakers are also part of the conventional sound system, though, so they will operate only if the car's audio is on.” [1]

 

1. Makers of Self-Driving Cars Seek Ways To Lessen Passengers' Motion Sickness --- A promise of autonomous vehicles is that you can use your travel time to work or read -- things that worsen queasiness. Halpert, Julie.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 14 Aug 2025: A12.