Stellantis Patent Turns A Sedan Or Hatch Into A Pickup With Foldable Tailgate

A newly filed patent from Stellantis could make traditional hatchbacks and sedans a lot more practical if it ever reaches a production car. Filed recently in France, it describes a split tailgate that would let ordinary cars haul long loads the way a pickup truck does.

The idea behind the patent is quite simple, although engineering it and making it work on a mass-market production vehicle would no doubt be challenging, though certainly achievable. The first, and simplest, aspect of the split tailgate described in the patent would be a lower section which folds down flat, much like the tailgate of an ordinary pickup truck.

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With a flat tailgate like this, you could, in theory, load long items like pieces of wood that ordinarily wouldn’t fit into a hatchback or a sedan. The second part of the split tailgate is where things get a little more complicated, as CarBuzz reports.

The upper section of the tailgate opens up far more than a typical one. In fact, it opens up so high that it flips around and can then lay flat against the roof. It’s unclear what kind of fancy hinges or struts would be needed to make this happen, but swinging the tailgate completely open like this would obviously help to maximize cargo carrying capacity.

The patent goes on to show that the hatch could be secured in position against the roof with a bar and a loop attached to the roof. Although this would secure the hatch in place, it’d obviously impact aerodynamics, so such a setup may not make much sense in an EV where aerodynamic efficiency is of the utmost importance.

Will Stellantis actually push forward and set about developing a split tailgate like this? It’s hard to say, but just as there’s a chance we would see a sedan or hatchback with a split tailgate like this in the future, there’s also a good chance this design will never make its way beyond the patent stage.