The midgate, as pioneered on the Chevrolet Avalanche, is potentially a revolutionary invention for the pickup. Letting drivers turn their modern short-bed pickups into long-bed trucks on demand to haul more or longer cargo might be the ultimate in truckin’ utility. Only GM has brought it to market with anything close to success, but it’s definitely not the only one who has tried.
Now, in a new patent discovered by CarBuzz, Nissan might be ready to take another crack at it in a very interesting way on the next Frontier. It’s one thing to just have a flexible midgate. But what about the seats that might get in the way?
Midgate Madness Coming To Your Next Truck?
2020 Nissan Titan with midgate patent illustrationNissan/Evan Williams/CarBuzz/Valnet
In the patent, Nissan describes that pickups are “known for their usefulness in moving cargo,” but that there is a problem. Trucks can have long beds and small cabins or extra seats and large cabins with shorter beds, but “the second row of seats is typically confined to an area with little to no versatility.” You can fold the seats up against the cabin wall or down against the floor, but either way, you aren’t freeing up much space.
Nissan wants what we all want: a more versatile truck. To help do that, it has developed a new seat folding mechanism that is meant to work in harmony with a midgate cab. After all, it doesn’t matter if the cab is open if the seats are taking up all the space.
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In Nissan’s invention, the rear seat doesn’t fold. Instead, the entire backrest is mounted on tracks attached to the seat bottom. When you want to open the rear of the cabin, the entire backrest slides forward until it touches the back of the front seats. Panels mounted to the back of the seat fold down to cover the now-exposed bottom cushion, protecting the seats and giving users a flat load surface.
Could You Use This Rear-Facing Seat?
Nissan midgate seat patentNissan
But when the seatback is slid forward, it doesn’t lose the ability to be a seat. Nissan’s patent shows that it instead can transform into a rear-facing seat, using the same panels that it uses for cargo. The images even show cupholders that the rear-facing passengers can use.
It’s not clear if the rear-facing seat could be used while the vehicle was driving. The patent images don’t show a relocated seatbelt, and it’s not mentioned in the text, either. But, a rear-facing seat is an interesting addition to the truck.
This seat probably wouldn’t change the characteristics enough to let Nissan call it a passenger vehicle instead of a pickup and skirt the Chicken Tax like the classic Subaru Brat did back in the day. You’re also not going to want to store cargo in the bed at the same time, because in a sudden stop or crash, the cargo would immediately fly full-force at the face and torso of the occupants.
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As a way to make the midgate work, though, it makes much more sense. Attaching the gate panel to the seat and sliding the whole seat should make it easy and flexible to use. It’s still not as simple as GM’s system, where the seat bottoms pivoted against the back of the front seats and the rear backrests folded down. But Nissan’s idea would work with the front seats in more positions. Nissan’s could also be power operated.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
2022 Chevrolet Silverado EV. Rear bench. Multi-Flex Midgate. Side profileChevrolet
If you’ve ever tried to haul plywood, lumber, or anything else long in a modern truck, you already know. Five and six-foot truck beds just aren’t long enough. Don’t believe us, go watch people put lumber through their sliding rear window at Home Depot. The ironic part is that many modern SUVs, even small ones, are better at hauling long items than pickup trucks.
A midgate solves the short bed problem, at least if it’s not raining. GM’s design, seen in the image above, had the perfect way to address that. We’re very interested to see if Nissan brings its idea to life, even if it’s just in a prototype, to see how it compares with GM.
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 and Trademark Office
