Because if you eat beef, you have cow skin also. And cow bones. And cow entrails. And you have two choices of what to do with it: make leather with the skin or throw it into a landfill.

I'm 100% OK with leather for shoes, chairs, wallets, car interiors, etc. Because throwing it away is wasting it.

And I like beef. I raise steers to eat them. I'm not going to stop. I will NEVER become vegetarian, let along vegan.

Skin doesn't become leather for free. Throwing it into the landfill is less resource intensive than turning it into leather, and possibly has a lower environmental impact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanning_(leather)#Health_and_e...

So you're not giving an insightful answer for why it's used instead of something else.

>> has a lower environmental impact.

Did you consider the new interior of the car as well in the environment impact?

That's a valid thing to consider, but what I wanted to address is that leather is not an obvious choice.

Durability and cleanliness. Fabric seats do not age well and are hard to clean. Real leather ages extremely well, and is easy to wipe clean. Fake leather or semi-fake leather (e.g. bonded) are easy to clean but age extremely poorly.

I find some nicer fabrics, such as Alcantara, to be more comfortable than leather, but they soak up oils and can end up looking gross as they age.

Animal hair is a big one. My husky’s hair literally weaves its way into any cloth seats and doesn’t come out.

Anecdote: I actually have a leather Volvo for this very reason. No problem using leather substitutes to accomplish the same though. Our home couches are pleather.

for my, I have a sensitivity to synthetic materials like pleather. it traps heat and makes me sweat 10x more from the area that is up against the material. this doesn't happen to me with real leather or cotton. most "cloth" seats in cars are also polyester based, not as bad but similar issue. to me leather is the most hygienic and easy to maintain. plus it's comfortable.

over time my sensitivity has diminished with cloths, but it's still there when I go overboard. taking a long 14h car trip from WA to CA that I do at least once a year would be a disaster for me with Pleather

Pleather is gross. It doesn’t breathe and doesn’t hold up. Definitely cloth over pleather.

agreed. I usually don't like the smell of cloth seats though. plus like I said, polyester still has problems for me.

end of the day, I've test driven volvos and they are overpriced for what you get compared to other luxury brands. I've had new Mercedes and they offer more for your buck.

so to me I'm just not the target audience for Volvo. and this kinda seals the deal for me.

The "quality" range of both real leather and fake leather is extremely wide. There is a lot of overlap.

Unless you are driving an S-class around, there is a very good chance that the "leather" seats you love are part leather and part fake leather (and you most likely can't tell the difference).

Anyway, Volvo offers "city weave" textile on most of their cars in the US - it is really awesome. But if you want to see something really amazing, check out the special-order wool seats that Volvo offers.

Thats fair. I will admit that the E class I used to have was probably some hybrid leather, but it didnt make me sweat, so thats ok.

Not usre what City weave is, but Ill look into it. Wool seats sound amazing. That is something I would go for.

At this point i have my luxury brand preferences, but its nice to see alternatives and other brands doing different/better.

It's mostly a status signaling issue. Car buyers have historically considered leather seats to be a "luxury” feature. And that used to be mostly true, since most older cloth and synthetic materials were generally less durable, less comfortable, and more prone to stains. But now modern synthetic materials are better in every way. It will take a while for buyer preferences to shift.

> But now modern synthetic materials are better in every way.

What fabrics/materials are better than leather “in every way”?

I think that's a great question. I have always preferred a good cloth seat to leather. I suppose leather is easier to clean, but I can't think of any other meaningful advantages.

Most clothe seats are synthetic fiber based on oil and nat gas. Like 99.99% of car interiors are synthetic. Because they are cheaper and more fire resistant.

So if you worry about plastic pollution in the oceans et al. you should not want this either.

https://www.ecosourcellc.net/2019/08/08/microfiber-pollution...

https://ecophiles.com/2017/01/31/plasticfiberpollution/

https://www.patagonia.com/stories/an-update-on-microfiber-po...

https://www.oceancleanwash.org/the-issue/

It's just a status symbol / veblen good.

Quality leather lasts forever, smells better, and is very comfortable. The downside is that it requires maintenance -- you do need to break it in, and it will form around your body. You also need to treat the leather every six months or so otherwise it may crack, and many don't do that. But if well maintained, it will last over a hundred years, much longer than the life of the car. And it will fit to your body like a glove and accumulate pleasing stains. The other downside is that it's not as quiet as cloth.

Most leather car seats are not made of quality leather, they are made of what can best be described as leather paste, bits of leather dust kept together by glue and pre-stained. The problem with this is that it doesn't last as long as actual full grain leather and degrades with sunlight. It is much cheaper though than full grain leather.

The modern vinyls used in the fake leather are softer than the earlier vinyls and also address the odor and cleaning problems with cloth, but they don't have the feel or durability of full grain leather. There is a real difference sitting on vinyl versus sitting on leather, even for the modern textured seats as in the latest BMWs with leatherettes (BMW has the highest quality fake leathers, but it's still the less popular option). They are also cheaper. Whether or not the leatherette seats last longer than the leather paste seats is primarily a function of the quality of the pastes/plastics/vinyls used in each. You can get expensive versions of both that should last longer but none will even begin to approach the longevity of full grain leather that is regularly cared for. You can find leather thousands of years old in museums -- there is a 5,500 year old leather shoe. Lather lasts forever and becomes softer and more pleasing with use. That is the appeal, but it's not for everyone. Like other consumer products, people want more disposable things that don't require maintenance or time to break in. The idea of buying something a bit tough and rigid that becomes more soft and supple over time is something most consumers don't want. Even when they buy leather, they want to buy the pre-stained leathers that are artificially stained rather than letting the leather naturally stain with age. Real leather is a truly old-fashioned material, made for the era when you bought one jacket and kept it for life, letting it change with your body. Or one belt for life that became more supply with time, something that you took care of and maintained.

The main thing cloth seats have going for them is that they are more quiet and cheaper to produce. In the very early days of the automobile, cloth seats were very expensive to produce relative to leather and so were the luxury option. Also the wealthy would reupholster their seats if they got stained or smelly. But that changed very quickly, and most still consider full grain leather seats to be the most luxurious option in terms of durability, odors, and feel, even if they are less practical than vynils or other materials that don't require treatment.

The downside is that you need ro raise an animal and kill it then pull its skin treat it with chemicals and hundreds of gallons of water then cut it into pieces and finally make your seat.