The everyday pickup truck mattress is tiny greater than a field with a tailgate, however Ford is envisioning one thing extra elaborate.
4 contemporary patent filings from the automaker display techniques to assemble a pickup mattress reconfigurable through extending the territory of each the mattress ground and partitions, and through including deployable ramps and steps for more straightforward get admission to.
The primary patent submitting titled “Extendable Cargo Bed Floor” describes a device of movable ground divisions that will permit the mattress ground to increase out week the rear bumper of a pickup. The ground divisions may just wrinkle up accordion-style and be stowed on the entrance of the mattress when inessentia, in line with the file, which additionally mentions a category that slides immediately out as a chance.
Patent symbol of Ford extending shipment mattress ground with steps and break up tailgate
The extendable mattress ground might be complemented through a split-opening tailgate, with the break up within the heart, Ford says within the file. The 2 tailgate divisions be angled parallel to the prolonged mattress ground to lend as bed-wall extensions. They might additionally distinguishable 180 levels to form a piece area, whole with instrument hooks and auxiliary lighting fixtures at the insides of the tailgate halves.
A 2nd patent submitting titled “Extendable Cargo Bed Floor and Cargo Bed Side Walls” applies a matching idea to the mattress’s partitions as neatly. On this instance, the mattress ground nonetheless folds out in divisions, however the rear category of the mattress additionally telescopes out. The internal mattress partitions prolong, taking the back lights and tailgate with them.
Ford has additionally thought to be including a deployable rear step, matching to its stream pickups, to the extendable mattress ground device. That’s described in but some other patent submitting, which claims those steps may just wrinkle up into one of the vital ground divisions described within the earlier two filings. Ford recently hides fold-out steps within the tailgate, however opts to playground them within the ground category right here to allow the split-folding tailgate design described within the first patent submitting.
Patent symbol of Ford ramp device for extendable mattress ground
In any case, a fourth patent submitting displays how a ramp device might be added to the prolonged mattress ground. On this case, the ramp would drop off from the rearmost category of the ground, stowing in that ground category when inessentia.
Automakers often patent concepts that don’t assemble it to manufacturing, however the way in which all the options described in those 4 patent packages had been designed to paintings in combination, it sort of feels Ford engineers have no less than concept this via.
