Ahead of the Paris Motor Show premiere of the new Discovery SUV later this month, Land Rover arranged for renowned adventurer Bear Grylls to demonstrate its innovative Intelligent Seat Fold technology by remotely arranging the SUV's seats while parachuting from a plane.
The fifth generation Land Rover Discovery is about to make its world premiere on September 28 at the Mondial de l' Automobile in Paris, France, and the company remains tight-lipped on much of the technology at the heart of its new SUV. Apart from a couple of images that Land Rover has released on its website, even the vehicle's main components are the subject of much speculation.
But thanks to a spectacular publicity stunt involving Land Rover Ambassador and TV adventurer Bear Grylls, we now know more about some remote access tech that will allow the driver to configure several features from a smartphone. Along with six members of the Royal Navy Parachute Display Team, Grylls jumped out of an airplane, arranging the seats of a camouflaged Discovery mid-air before the whole seven-member team landed around and boarded the new car.
Grylls (who became a household name thanks to his long-standing Ultimate Survival series on the … Discovery Channel) remotely moved and folded the vehicle's seven seats using an iOS/Android app called the InControl Remote.
The app also enables the user to perform such tasks as monitoring the car's position, checking fuel level, making sure that the windows are closed, and pre-setting the air condition to a specified temperature from anywhere in the world that has internet access.
"Land Rover is proving why the New Discovery is the ultimate family SUV," said Bear Grylls after the jump. "The fact that they have created this world-first Intelligent Seat Fold technology is impressive in itself and for the remote function to work while we are freefalling from a plane is pretty cool! I'm not sure many people will be using it in such a manner, but the technology to operate the car remotely in this way will undoubtedly be a real winner for busy families who want to be prepared."
You can see all the action in the video below.
Source: Land Rover