Next-gen Jaguar Land Rover seats to give you a workout

Jaguar Land Rover has announced it is developing new shape-shifting seats that actively stimulate your muscles to give them the impression you're walking.

According to JLR's Body Interiors Research division, the new chairs have been created to mimic light exercise and thereby reduce the health risks of sitting for long periods of time.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than a quarter of people globally -- around 1.4 billion -- spend too long sitting down, many of whom drive for a living.

This, says WHO research, leads to muscle damage in the hips and glutes and could led to potentially fatal deep vein thrombosis.

It's not known how the new JLR seats work, but they're said to automatically adjust to every body type and could electrically pulse muscles and potentially nerves.

JLR hasn't announced when its fitness-promoting seats will be ready, but they're being developed by the same team who created technolgy to reduce motion sickness on the move and a climate control that harnesses UV light to stop the spread of colds and flu.

Commenting on the new seats, Dr Steve Iley, Jaguar Land Rover Chief Medical Officer, said: “The well-being of our customers and employees is at the heart of all our technological research projects.

"We are using our engineering expertise to develop the seat of the future, using innovative technologies not seen before in the automotive industry, to help tackle an issue that affects people across the globe.”