Ventilated Seats

Westchester Air · Apr 22, 2025

First kind of hot day for my '25 AT and used the Air Conditioning with the ventilated seats for the first time. Sorry if this is a silly question, but I never had "ventilated seats" before. I gotta say...even on high it sort of felt like I couldn't feel anything at all. Not ever having used this feature on any vehicle, am wondering...are they not really working? Or is a a super subtle feature

thyname · Apr 22, 2025

Keep in mind “ventilated” does not mean “cooling”. Lucid is my third car with ventilated seats, and to me feels similar with the others

segbrk · Apr 22, 2025

It's subtle, sure. It's not actually A/C in there, just fans. If you turn on the foot A/C the seat ventilation will pull up more cool air. The nice thing is that it completely removes the problems of scalding leather in the summer, and of sweaty thighs sticking to that leather.

Westchester Air · Apr 22, 2025

Will

thyname said:
Keep in mind “ventilated” does not mean “cooling”. Lucid is my third car with ventilated seats, and to me feels similar with the others

Is it designed to "cool the seats"...just keeping them from scorching you? Or should you actually feel cool air breezing from them?

JGard18 · Apr 22, 2025

I think a recent update broke them. I tested them on my car when I first got it six months ago (and they worked great), but didn’t need them all winter. Went to use them this weekend and nothing happened. I have a loaner right now and it’s the same issue.

segbrk · Apr 22, 2025

JGard18 said:
I think a recent update broke them. I tested them on my car when I first got it six months ago (and they worked great), but didn’t need them all winter. Went to use them this weekend and nothing happened. I have a loaner right now and it’s the same issue.

Still working for me. Check with service?

Westchester Air said:
Will

Is it designed to "cool the seats"...just keeping them from scorching you? Or should you actually feel cool air breezing from them?

With them turned all the way up I can feel them with a hand. You should definitely be able to hear the fans if it's quiet around you. I'd say they are just to keep air moving under the surface though, not to blow air at you.

JGard18 · Apr 22, 2025

segbrk said:
Still working for me. Check with service?

With them turned all the way up I can feel them with a hand. You should definitely be able to hear the fans if it's quiet around you. I'd say they are just to keep air moving under the surface though, not to blow air at you.

Yeah it’s in service now. They confirmed they’re not working. But my loaner is doing the exact same thing as my car. So something is up at a larger scale

thyname · Apr 22, 2025

Westchester Air said:
Will

Is it designed to "cool the seats"...just keeping them from scorching you? Or should you actually feel cool air breezing from them?

More like “sucking” air than “blowing”.

DeaneG · Apr 22, 2025

My Air GT's ventilated seats are very weak compared to the cooled ones I had in my Kia Soul EV so many years ago. They would freeze your a$$ off.
Still, it's much better than nothing.

Westchester Air · Apr 23, 2025

DeaneG said:
My Air GT's ventilated seats are very weak compared to the cooled ones I had in my Kia Soul EV so many years ago. They would freeze your a$$ off.
Still, it's much better than nothing.

Yeah...VERY weak if they're working as designed. I may have 'em looked at at some point. BTW, the AC did work great. (Car was out in the sun...temps reached 80F here in NYC and I have the glass canopy.). I did purchase the sun shades and will pop 'em in for the summer in another month.

Based on what I'm hearing, perhaps i'll hold off on thinking too much about the Ventilated Seats until after the next update....

ken43 · Apr 23, 2025

According to my mobile service tech, the ventilation pulls air into the seat rather than blowing it out. This is the same design the sleep number beds use on their top-of-the-line climate360 bed

JGard18 · Apr 23, 2025

ken43 said:
According to my mobile service tech, the ventilation pulls air into the seat rather than blowing it out. This is the same design the sleep number beds use on their top-of-the-line climate360 bed

What's interesting is when I tested it before, it absolutely blew out, you could feel it. My prior car, BMX iX did the "suck in" thing, and it was worthless. Absolute crap. I don't know why some automakers feel the need to do it that way. I wonder if an update reversed how the fan spins to go from blow to suck.

hydbob · Apr 23, 2025

JGard18 said:
What's interesting is when I tested it before, it absolutely blew out, you could feel it. My prior car, BMX iX did the "suck in" thing, and it was worthless. Absolute crap. I don't know why some automakers feel the need to do it that way. I wonder if an update reversed how the fan spins to go from blow to suck.

The ventilated seats have been suck in from the beginning.

JGard18 · Apr 23, 2025

hydbob said:
The ventilated seats have been suck in from the beginning.

Interesting. That’s a shame. My service tech seemed to agree mine weren’t working so who knows

Westchester Air · Apr 23, 2025

ken43 said:
According to my mobile service tech, the ventilation pulls air into the seat rather than blowing it out. This is the same design the sleep number beds use on their top-of-the-line climate360 bed

Perhaps this explains why I don't really feel much happening, despite hearing the fans running. I suppose the theory is it pulls the heat from the surface of the seat and your back...IDK. Without feeling my back cooling, it's hard to know they're doing anything. Maybe I need to leave them on longer to see if they're doing their thing....

borski · Apr 23, 2025

Westchester Air said:
Perhaps this explains why I don't really feel much happening, despite hearing the fans running. I suppose the theory is it pulls the heat from the surface of the seat and your back...IDK. Without feeling my back cooling, it's hard to know they're doing anything. Maybe I need to leave them on longer to see if they're doing their thing....

Not a theory; that’s precisely how they work. They pull heat away from your body; the goal is to prevent the leather from ever getting sticky and hot, mostly, and to cool you off by pulling heat. But it isn’t air conditioning; it’s just ventilation. It helps a lot if you ensure the foot vents are open.

Westchester Air · Apr 23, 2025

borski said:
Not a theory; that’s precisely how they work. They pull heat away from your body; the goal is to prevent the leather from ever getting sticky and hot, mostly, and to cool you off by pulling heat. But it isn’t air conditioning; it’s just ventilation. It helps a lot if you ensure the foot vents are open.

Cool (pun intended). Ok...will wait for the next hot & sweaty day and run the ventilation along with A/C via the foot vents open.

JGard18 · Apr 23, 2025

Yep, I just got the call from my service center confirming that they pull air in, don't push air out. I wish I could have my seats pull a MegaMaid here and go from suck to blow. But here we are. No idea why car manufacturers think that's a good design, it works very poorly in every application I've seen. That said, when I tested them months ago, I could SWEAR I could feel air movement when I held my hand next to the surface, and that is definitely not the case. In my iX, I could feel air movement, too, and those are definitely a pull setup (which also meant it seemed like the ventilated seats were 100% useless). This is only my 3rd vehicle with ventilated seats, and so far Rivian is the only one who did it right. Oh well.

marsarbu · Apr 23, 2025

DeaneG said:
My Air GT's ventilated seats are very weak compared to the cooled ones I had in my Kia Soul EV so many years ago. They would freeze your a$$ off.
Still, it's much better than nothing.

Kia & Hyundai do the best jobs at cooling seats, your bum really goes cold. Beats Porsche, Benz, BMW and other heavy hitters.

marsarbu · Apr 23, 2025

JGard18 said:
Yep, I just got the call from my service center confirming that they pull air in, don't push air out. I wish I could have my seats pull a MegaMaid here and go from suck to blow. But here we are. No idea why car manufacturers think that's a good design, it works very poorly in every application I've seen. That said, when I tested them months ago, I could SWEAR I could feel air movement when I held my hand next to the surface, and that is definitely not the case. In my iX, I could feel air movement, too, and those are definitely a pull setup (which also meant it seemed like the ventilated seats were 100% useless). This is only my 3rd vehicle with ventilated seats, and so far Rivian is the only one who did it right. Oh well.

In theory, sucking air away from a surface you're squashed against it's more efficient. Cooling by blowing air only works if the air is able to push through the perforation and move around your bum, hence carry away the heat - which is impossible when your bum is covering the holes.

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