Honda is patenting its personal model of the mid-gate that is making a return on the Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV pickup vehicles.
First noticed by Automobile and Driver, a Honda patent utility printed by the United States Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO) on June 27, particulars what the automaker calls an “adjustable cargo space partition.”
Nevertheless it appears an terrible lot like a mid-gate, albeit with some variations from what we have seen to date on manufacturing autos.
Honda mid-gate patent picture
As an alternative of utterly folding right down to create uninterrupted area between the mattress and cab, as within the Normal Motors’ mid-gate designs, Honda’s model consists of a divider that cane be moved ahead and backward to change the size of the mattress. Honda additionally means that the roof may very well be prolonged when the divider is in its rearmost place to offer extra passenger area within the cab.
GM pioneered the mid-gate within the early 2000s with its Chevy Avalanche and Cadillac Escalade EXT, providing cab area akin to full-size SUVs of the time and pickup-like mattress area in a single bundle. Nevertheless, these mid-gates left an open area within the cab when in use—one thing Honda’s design seems to keep away from.
Honda mid-gate patent picture
The mid-gate is making a comeback on the Silverado EV and Sierra EV, a pair of unibody electrical pickups primarily based on GM’s Ultium structure. The manufacturing ramp-up of each vehicles has been sluggish, nonetheless, with GM just lately confirming that large-scale manufacturing of each vehicles at a Michigan plant that when constructed the Chevy Bolt EV was being delayed till mid-2026.
Honda is not the one automaker contemplating a mid-gate. Ford has filed two patent functions for mid-gate pass-throughs. One was printed by the USPTO earlier this yr, and one other surfaced in 2023 exhibiting a mid-gate together with fold-flat seats.