Boston Startup Teams With Chinese EV Automaker to Revolutionize Suspensions
ClearMotion created one of the most impressive suspensions we’ve ever seen; to show it off, they took a page out of Lexus marketing history!
Pretty much anyone who was around at the time – not just Lexus enthusiasts – remember when the luxury brand put out one of the greatest ad spots of all time. Even to this day, most everyone is at least aware of the legendary commercial showing a Lexus LS400 undergoing ride quality testing on rollers, hitting 145 mph with a stack of champagne glasses on the hood. It was a shot across the bow of other luxury automakers touting their own supreme ride comfort at the time, and one that forever cemented Lexus in the minds of consumers. Now, however, it seems as if a Boston-based startup called ClearMotion is out to do that once again by revolutionizing automotive suspensions as we know them.
We first learned of this new suspension system from a recent post in the ClubLexus forums, which – as one might imagine – raised a lot of eyebrows. Much like Audi’s Predictive Active Suspension system, this new setup – officially called ClearMotion1 – is able to control each wheel of a vehicle individually, dramatically reducing motion inside of the cabin in the process by using some nifty tech.
ClearMotion1 relies on an array of equipment to make that happen, including an individual unit housed within each wheel well that utilizes both a motor and power electronics paired with an array of sensors. Those units relay data to specialized software, which analyzes it and is even able to use it to predict road conditions, then react accordingly by adjusting the vehicle’s suspension with an eye toward reducing any kind of disruption that might stem from uneven road surfaces. In fact, as we can see in the video below, it does this quite well – reducing internal motion by around 75 percent compared to existing suspensions as this ET9 prototype navigates speed bumps with – you guessed it – a stack of champagne glasses on the hood, Lexus style.
ClearMotion was inspired not only to revolutionize suspensions and ride quality as we know it, but also, to cut down on the types of issues that lead to motion sickness, which affects a rather large portion of the population. This revolutionary suspension isn’t just some kind of prototype that won’t see the light of day for some time, either – rather, it’s set to make its debut in the NIO ET9 Chinese EV later this year, a flagship sedan that won’t be sold in the U.S. – at least for now.
Regardless, NIO was looking for a way to differentiate itself in an EV-saturated market, and it’s betting that ClearMotion1 is the answer. Early testing is so promising that the two companies expect their relationship to grow to a whopping 750,000 vehicles over the coming years, and they’re also in talks with major automakers across the U.S. and Europe as they seek to spread the technology to other markets as well. With any luck, they might just accomplish that goal, and one day soon, we might be tooling around in even greater comfort than we are with today’s already-quite-sophisticated suspension tech.
Join the Club Lexus forums now!
