"I wonder if this was designed in 2000..."

"A great exercise into monomaterial design!The hard challenge is that this is obviously a process way more expensive than your regular nuts and bolts. You can direct it for higher segments of the market, but then you lose scale, and so you're not having a significant impact on the environment anymore. (And flatpack is usually associated with cheap)Also, significant more machine time to CNC all of that has its impact on energy consuption\footprint. So you need to do some math."

""Skeuomorphism has always served the same purpose: to make the transition to new technologies feel more familiar."The exact same concept used in religion, when the conquerors would adopt the same holy days of the conquered nation only with different names and cellebrations (and vice-versa), to make the religious conversion smoother."

"Never fix a poor design with a complementary product"

"The frame has no foam. But is there any mention about what's inside that pad that you sit on?"

"Right of the bat the way I would approach this would be to have something folding down from the backrest of the passenger seat, in the same way most manufacturers include a folding armrest\cupholders in the middle of the back seats. That way you add this functionality without creating another object inside the car that you wouldn't know where to store when not in use. Comfort would be compromised, but you cant have everything."

"Extended seat sofas are really common in Europe. In spain in particular, this type of sofa is THE standard sofa everyone buys.https://www.ikea.com/es/en/p/eskilstuna-3-seat-sofa-with-chaise-longue-hillared-anthracite-s59520193/Motorized versions are also fairly widespread, mostly in countries like Italy or Germany. From a user point-of-view, having an electric motor is just added trouble. You need to have the sofa connected to a power source; motors are usually slow, taking several seconds until fully opened\closed; are more expensive, and obviously more prone to fail.This chinese version is a little different though, because the extension folds downwards. This allows the back of the sofa to be less deep, which can be nice in terms of proportions."