Forget pickup trucks or hypercars, the real driving force of vehicle innovation since 1984 has been the minivan. Especially the Chrysler minivan. Now CarBuzz has found a new patent from the people carrier experts that could make the company’s only model more flexible than ever.
New Seat Idea Lets You Slide Back, Flip It, Or Reverse It
Stellantis Minivan sliding seat patent drawingStellantis
The patent is called Cross-Car and Fore-Aft Positionable Seating System. It’s a dull name, but the result makes even the modularity of Lego bricks look like child’s play.
Stellantis engineers have invented a system of tracks that are installed in the floor of the vehicle. They let the seats slide forward and backward and be positioned side to side. We aren’t talking about the normal front-rear slide of a drive or passenger seat, or the slight adjustability of a second row. This is serious sliding. They can go nearly the entire length of the vehicle, with the ability to go side-to-side in any position.
The patent drawings show two sets of tracks running fore and aft in the vehicle. Multiple side-to-side slide assemblies, one for each of the van’s seats, are mounted on them.
This gives all the seats in the first and second rows incredible flexibility, even if you might not use all of it. Turning the driver’s seat to face rearward doesn’t make much sense, for example, but turning the front passenger or middle seats might.
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The side-to-side sliders are mounted so that seats in similar positions can still move. You can slam the two middle seats together and off to one side, for example, or slide one of them a little bit forward. Thanks to all the movement, you can stagger a rear-facing passenger, so their legs don’t meet with the person they’re facing, too.
This Is A Minivan Innovation For An Electric Future
Stellantis Minivan sliding seat patent drawingStellantis
Some of the examples in the patent filing include a child seat moved to directly behind the center console for easier reach from the front seats, and a middle seat turned to face out the sliding door. We presume that’s for the minivan mini gun from the SRT accessory catalog people who might go camping or day-tripping to the park. Seats slid all over for cargo and passenger flexibility is the rule of the day.
Chrysler doesn’t show the third row on the tracks, and that shows why the company has come up with this instead of a newer version of its Stow ‘n Go seats that fold into the floor of the van. Stow ‘n Go relies on dead space below the interior floor. With electric vehicles, that space no longer exists because there’s a battery there. Even Chrysler’s current PHEV Pacifica is lacking the hidden middle seats because of its battery pack. This gives back some of that lost flexibility, and adds some in a different way.
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Stow ‘n Go was arguably the pinnacle of minivan flexibility until now, though the seven individually foldable and removable (by an average man or woman) seats of the Chevrolet Lumina APV and its siblings gave it a run for its money. This new invention combines the hideaway of third row seats that fold into the floor with first and second rows that can do almost anything you want.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
Stellantis Minivan sliding seat patent drawingStellantis
Minivans are all about flexibility. They move passengers and cargo in large quantities, and that flexibility is part of how they can do it so well. The future of the van, with EV and PHEV models coming, rules out one of the current Chrysler van killer features.
This new idea isn’t a one-to-one replacement, but it is still a nice step-up. It could give PHEV and EV minivans from the brand a big leg up on the competition, and an advantage that owners could use every day.
Patent filings do not guarantee the use of such technology in future vehicles and are often used exclusively as a means of protecting intellectual property. Such a filing cannot be construed as confirmation of production intent.
Source: US Patent & Trademark Office
