Hyundai Patents a Power Tailgate That Also Swings Like a Door

Hyundai has patented a powered pickup tailgate that can drop down the usual way or swing open sideways like a door, using one motor and a clutch to do both jobs.

The filing is the second multi-function tailgate design Hyundai has put in front of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this year, and the drawings in both show a truck shaped a lot like the Santa Cruz, the only pickup Hyundai sells today.

CarBuzz reported the patent on October 27 and noted that Hyundai’s own filing points out that powered tailgates typically open along a single axis, while some manual gates open more than one way. The design is unconfirmed for production, and CarBuzz was careful to say that patents are often filed to protect an idea rather than to signal a product. The outlet also questioned how much abuse a motorized, dual-hinged gate would take on a working truck.

The August filing it builds on describes a split tailgate with a side-hinged section that swings out like a barn door, a platform that folds down from that section and a slide-out brace to support it, which CarBuzz covered on August 17 and said looked like it was drawn on a Santa Cruz. That outlet’s guess was that the hardware is more likely headed for Hyundai’s coming midsize truck than for the current one.

That truck is real. Hyundai showed the body-on-frame Boulder concept at the New York Auto Show on April 1 and said the platform will underpin a production midsize pickup by 2030, designed and built in America with Hyundai-made U.S. steel. Hyundai Motor North America CEO Randy Parker called the midsize pickup "a significant growth opportunity for Hyundai in the United States," and the Boulder concept itself wore a double-hinged tailgate that opens from either side.

The Santa Cruz’s future is the open question. Hyundai has not announced a 2027 Santa Cruz, and Kelley Blue Book reported in February, citing Automotive News, that the unibody pickup would end production in 2026 to free Montgomery capacity for the Tucson. Hyundai has not confirmed that report, but the sales trend fits it: Santa Cruz sales were down 28 percent through September at 14,811, and down 25 percent in the third quarter, while the Ford Maverick that it was built to fight outsold it by about six to one in 2025 according to KBB.

The HyundaiHQ Take

The Santa Cruz always had the best bed ideas of any small pickup, with the built-in tonneau and the in-bed trunk, and a two-way tailgate would have been another one, but it looks like the patents are landing a few years too late for it. A door-style gate makes more sense on a body-on-frame truck anyway, where the bed is higher and loading from the side pays off. If the Santa Cruz really is done after 2026, Hyundai should at least make sure the midsize truck arrives with this gate working, because clever bed hardware is the one place a newcomer can beat the Tacoma on day one.