Hyundai Mobis supplies overhead bin-shaped glove compartment for Kia EV9

The parabolic motion glove compartment developed by Hyundai Mobis, installed in Kia’s three-row family electric car, the EV9 (Hyundai Mobis)

Hyundai Mobis, the car parts manufacturer affiliated with Hyundai Motor Group, said Wednesday it has supplied newly developed glove compartments inspired by airplane overhead bins to Kia’s three-row family electric car, the EV9.

The parabolic motion glove compartment refers to its design that opens and closes following a parabolic trajectory similar to overhead airplane luggage compartments. Unlike typical glove compartments with covers or rotational pull handles, it gradually slides open when pulling the lever without taking up excessive legroom and decreases the risk of hitting the passenger’s knees, the company said.

The glove compartment is near the first-row passenger’s knees and offers one of the largest spaces for storing small items such as car manuals, tissues, sunglasses and foldable umbrellas.

Given that electric vehicles have more passenger space than internal combustion engine cars because they do not have engine rooms, we designed the glove compartment to have a larger storage capacity suited explicitly for EVs, it added.

Adopting the mechanism of parabolic motion, Hyundai Mobis has expanded the glove compartment capacity to over 8 liters for the EV9. Internal combustion vehicles usually offer a glove box capacity of around 5.5 liters. The new glove box also introduces user-friendly features such as allowing for more simple retrieving and inserting items into the compartment, according to the company.

The overhead bin-shaped glove compartment originated from a team that pitched the idea and won a gold medal in a 2021 internal idea contest. The concept of developing a glove compartment mechanism optimized for EVs later evolved into a product that led to mass production for the EV9. Since 2019, the company has accumulated over 3,200 innovative ideas from staff as of the first half of this year.

“Key to future mobility is to reinterpret and reorganize passenger space. We will make efforts to develop technologies that prioritize user experience,” said Choi Jae-seob, head of the trim module engineering sector at Hyundai Mobis.

In the first quarter of this year, Hyundai Mobis saw its sales revenue and operating profit surge on-year by 27.4 percent and 64.6 percent to 15.7 trillion won ($12.1 billion) and 663.8 billion won, respectively. The electric car parts business, in particular, posted 3.7 trillion won, taking up 28.8 percent of the modules and car parts business.