Tesla Model X Falcon-Wing Doors — Patent Requested

September 24th, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

Originally published on Ecopreneurist.

The Tesla Model X, an electric crossover, was revealed a long time back. Reservations started in February 2012. Nonetheless, we just got word of a patent for which Tesla has filed an application, a patent for the crossover’s falcon-wing doors.

Value Walk’s Michelle Jones writes:

Spotted by Shane McGlaun of Slash Gear, the patent describes those falcon wing doors as “a dual hinged door assembly.” The assembly features upper and lower portions, with the upper part pivoting “about a primary axis formed by its juncture with a structural member in the roof.” The upper part of the door may have a window. The lower part of the door may also have a window and “pivots about a secondary axis formed by its juncture with the upper door portion.”

Tesla offers power rear doors

The door may also use drive systems to independently power the motion of each of the door potions. Each of the drive systems could have a powered and a non-powered strut. In other words, the rear doors of Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s Model X could have some kind of automatic system like what’s used on a number of SUVs today. It could also use gas struts which are manually powered.

By separating the doors into two parts with a hinge, the automaker hopes to make it possible to still open the doors even when the vehicle is parked between two others in a parking lot. If the doors were all a single piece without a hinge in the middle, it would be unlikely that there would be enough room to open the massive wing doors with a vehicle next to it.

Is this the Model X technology?

Of course the technology described in many patents never sees the light of day, but this one just may be the design Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is actually working with. Tesla’s website shows off the Model X doors with an innovative feature enabling the viewer to click and drag the doors of the vehicle up and down. It’s possible that this patent represents the original plan for the vehicle’s doors.

The website even describes the doors as opening “up and out of the way, in even the narrowest of parking spots.”

Deliveries of the Tesla Model X are scheduled for the end of 2014, with “volume production” in 2015.

Aside from the Model X, Tesla plans to roll out self-driving cars within 3 years and a “sort of affordable” electric car that will cost about half of what the Model S costs by 2017.

Image Credits: Tesla

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Tags: Tesla, Tesla Model X, Tesla patents

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

JamesWimberley

I hope the patent will be refused on grounds of obviousness.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  This may be more about stopping someone from taking out a patent and then blackmailing Tesla.
  
  Preventative patenting. If it gets refused on grounds of obviousness then the result is the same.
Shiggity

Falcon Wing = 2 hinges

Gullwing = 1 hinge

A dual hinged door has never been added on a car to my knowledge.
- Marion Meads
  
  I’ll patent a triple and multiple hinged door on the Tesla. what can you say about that?
  - Bob_Wallace
    
    Put a continuous (piano) hinge on it and rain won’t drip through the gap.
    I’m calling first on that. And I’m not wasting time and money on getting a patent.
- Burnerjack
  
  Maybe not passenger doors per se, but that style of hood opening for the engine compartment was in use about 80 or 90 years ago.
Felix Hoenikker

Uhhhh side clearance? How about sliding vertical doors?
ebh

Wow what will these guys think up next a hundred thousand dollar electric car for the elite… some rational explanation of why Americans will sit in line for hours waiting to charge their cars (Think about how irritated you get when one guy ahead of you at the pump takes too long… mutiple that frustration to the depths of infinity… or how their gonna ramp up production… before GM VW and BMW get to the masses first… without getting capital from the markets and diluting the overpriced 20 Billion dollar market cap of the stock price…I guess they need a tweet division running 24/7 …stinks of Delorean… fluxcapacitor to the rescue… another thing… when these cars are two years old will their 7000 laptop cells hold a charge… I don’t think I would be very happy listening to the radio in my garage
- Ronald Brakels
  
  You’d better be careful you don’t accidently buy one then.
- Ivor O’Connor
  
  “Wow what will these guys think up next a hundred thousand dollar electric car for the elite”
  
  Hopefully a flying car with auto pilot. So I would not need to go through the big ditches on my dirt roads and then join the traffic waiting at stop lights. Just take a 3 minute hop over the hills and I’m wherever I want to be. It will probably be close to 500K so you had better start saving your money and join the “elite”.
  - Shiggity
    
    Keep shorting the stock ebh, you’re making me rich.
- Sandman
  
  Ummmm…. I do not mean to make you look like a fool, but ummm…
  Tesla has sold more cars than Delorean ever produced. Additionally, the CEO of the company is not involved in drug trafficking.
  
  Yes GM, VW, and BMW are all chasing the masses, but they’re chasing them with hybrids. Tesla is going after the masses with an all electric car. BMW has their i3, but with less than 100 mile range, its just competing with Nissan Leaf.
  
  GM is working on creating a car with a 200 mile range to compete with Tesla, but they’re playing catch-up with a company that has already produced a car with an EPA estimated 265 mile range. Your interjection here is the price, but did any new technology arrive cheap and ready for the masses at introduction? Look up the price of the first iPhone ever sold. Was that for the elite? or for everyone?
  
  With technology advancements, there will be EVs available at better prices, it just takes time and competition to make it attainable for everyone else.
  
  Oh, one last thing. Please short the stock.
- NRG4All
  
  Sandman – +1