A little transmission would let one drive motor raise and lower the whole tailgate or swing one section sideways.

Multifunction and split tailgates are definitely a thing now, and there’s probably no going back. Many truckmakers offer some sort of door-within-a-door or built-in-step arrangement that adds utility to what was previously just a hinged wall that kept stuff in the bed. A new Hyundai/Kia concept could take that to the next level by applying power to a two-way tailgate.

A recently published U.S. patent application covering a previously disclosed design builds on previous filings that describe a split tailgate that opens two ways: the conventional way, swinging the whole unit down with hinge action at the bottom, or sideways opening, with a vertical hinge allowing a portion of the tailgate to swing out, providing belly-up-to-the-bed access. That much we've seen before.

The distinguishing feature is that this split tailgate can open and close in either direction, and do so with power from a single drive motor. All two-way tailgates currently offered by Ford, Honda, and Ram require manual operation for side-opening, and only Ford’s offers powered raising and lowering. Not only does the Hyundai/Kia idea remove that unnecessary application of work, but it does so with clever simplicity.

Think of the mechanism as a little transmission that sends one drive motor’s power to either of two outputs. One operates the bottom hinge to raise or lower the entire tailgate. The other operates a spindle that pushes or pulls a lever to swing one section sideways.

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