A sedan can have plenty of space in front of your knees and still leave you sitting uncomfortably in the back. If the floor puts your feet high relative to the seat cushion, your knees rise and the cushion may support less of your thighs. Moving the front seat forward does not solve that problem.
An underfloor battery makes this an important packaging question for electric sedans. The battery needs space, the roof needs clearance above passengers’ heads, and the seat has to fit between them. A longer wheelbase can create more room front to back without creating the vertical space that makes a relaxed seating posture possible.
Two manufacturers have explained how they worked around that conflict. Their solutions are useful things to understand before a test drive, not reasons to assume every electric sedan has the same problem.
Porsche leaves room for feet inside the battery’s outline
In its original Taycan technical material from 2019, Porsche describes recesses in the battery beneath the rear footwells. It calls them foot garages. They make room for rear passengers’ feet while letting the car retain a low roofline.
That is different from lifting the entire rear seat above a uniformly high floor. Space is reserved within the pack’s layout where the passengers need it, rather than treating every part of the floor as equally useful battery volume.
In a 2019 interview, Porsche design chief Michael Mauer explained that foot garages helped combine low passenger seating with the Taycan’s sports-car proportions.
These are descriptions of the original Taycan’s engineering, not a claim that every present-day Porsche battery or seat uses identical dimensions.
Lucid shows why the battery version matters
Lucid’s own Battery Pack Tech Talk demonstrates two early Air pack layouts. In the smaller version, cells are omitted beneath the rear foot area to create a recess. The larger layout shown in the demonstration fills that space.
The lesson is not simply that a smaller battery is better. More energy can be valuable on a long trip. It is that the battery choice can change passenger space in a way that a single rear-legroom figure does not capture.
The video discusses early Air engineering and identifies the recessed design with the then-planned Air Pure. It is not a current configurator. A buyer should check the exact model year and version at the showroom rather than assume every Air, or every trim with a familiar name, has the same floor.
A flat floor is not the same thing as a low floor
Removing a transmission tunnel can give a center passenger more places to put their feet. It does not automatically mean the floor is low enough relative to the seat. Likewise, a deep footwell is not sufficient if shoes cannot slide comfortably beneath the front seat.
These are different dimensions of comfort: knee clearance, foot placement, cushion height, cushion angle and headroom. Improving one does not guarantee the others. A roofline that looks generous outside can still leave a tall passenger choosing between head clearance and thigh support inside.
Our 800-volt EV explainer looks at battery architecture from the charging side. Rear-seat packaging is another reminder that a battery is a physical object inside a vehicle, not just a capacity number on a specification sheet.
Try the rear seat before choosing the battery
Set the front seat for the person who would normally drive. Then sit behind it wearing normal shoes. Check whether your feet fit naturally, whether the cushion supports your thighs and whether you have headroom without slouching. Try both outer positions and the middle if that seat will be used.
Spend more than a moment there. A position that feels acceptable during a quick sit can become tiring when you cannot shift your feet or relax your legs. If two battery or trim versions are available, try both instead of relying on the badge or the legroom measurement.
The best rear seat is not necessarily in the car with the longest wheelbase or the biggest battery. It is the one that leaves room for your whole sitting posture, including the space beneath your feet.