January 8th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Jatech LLC has come up with the Disappearing Car Door, a futuristic and innovative hingeless car door design that folds beneath the car. The technology can be implemented in any automobile or an originally designed body frame. It reminds me of something out of a Transformers movie.
The site is not very informative and I would have liked to hear more on it’s structural safety. There is nothing on the site besides the general statement:
We work with the finest and most experienced coach builders in the US and Europe, ensuring that your vehicle will be manufactured to the highest quality, reliability and safety standards, including a manual override for door operation.
With just an email, no company address (just its location), no other details of its licenses and who owns this company… it is hard for me to take them seriously. Is it a company out of someone’s garage? Is it a college project? It’s really hard to tell. Word of advice, cut the irrelevant sidebar Bed and Breakfast and Pet Retreat ads — not very professional.
They really need to add more facts and figures on their site instead of stating general statements without anything to substantiate it. The slideshow presentation (the link is located on right column above “Click here to Advertise”) has artist renderings, door specifications and they estimate that implementing it would be the same as a powered van door.
Some areas that was left unanswered after I saw the presentation:
- safety numbers; has it been tested? what are the crash test ratings?
- it states that it significantly improves in strength, stiffness and lightness; what is this in comparison too? numbers/ data would help me be a believer
- what is the extra costs to implement it on a current model car (as I highly doubt it would be the same a powered van door) i.e. a ballpark figure on a small, midsized and large car
Very cool idea and definitely a step towards the future. However, implementing it would depend on it’s safety and whether it is cost effective commercially.
8 Responses to “Car door of the future?”
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kristarella said: @ 7:50 am
January 8th, 2008
Woah, pretty proffessional video.
The only safety issue I can think of is that if you crashed your car it might be pretty difficult for someone else to open from the inside. Then again, power windows only working when the car is turned on hasn’t stopped those from becoming very wide spread.
CatherineL said: @ 2:22 pm
January 8th, 2008
Well - it’s different. Although I can’t ever see me needing one.
And if it takes as long to work as their site takes to load I can’t imagine it being that convenient either.
I too would want to see some safety stats before trying something like this out.
Dizzy Dee said: @ 1:51 am
January 9th, 2008
Ooh, that’s rather cool. Though I’m not sure if I’d like one of those for myself yet…
calvin hopkins said: @ 5:02 pm
January 25th, 2008
heh Unless they install a canopy that pops out of the roof I can’t see this being very practical for anyone living north of Santa Fe.
Lawrence Fetter said: @ 3:47 pm
January 26th, 2008
All cars now have positive latch mechanisms for keeping the door latched in a side impact, rollover, or other accident mode. The door shown would be pushed into the occupant during a side impact. The door intrusion into passenger space in a collision would be unacceptable by current standards.
Doors must now have internal reinforcement, i.e., side guards. With window mechanisms, side guards and other structural pieces, doors must have a thickness that is practical to package all of the components. Stowing such a door under the car and maintaining 6″ of ground clearance is fantasy. I can’t imagine the mechanism required to accomplish the task. Electrical connections and weatherstrip requirements would be a daunting task, if not impossible.
Structurally, subject door concept is very poor. In torsion and bending loading, the door would add nothing to body stiffness. A convertible body requires additional members to provide stiffness for handling and road undulations. Subject door would add additional weight and reduce stiffness.
Yes, there are many very good reasons why vehicle doors, after decades of manufacture, still articulate in similar manner to the earliest models. I would be glad to see a new concept that is crash-worthy, cost-effective to produce, and contributes to vehicle body stiffness. When such a concept arrives, I want to see the details of how it works and the engineering data to support the claims.
PapayaSF said: @ 12:49 am
January 27th, 2008
Nice idea, bit I think it’s a scam: on most (if not all) modern cars, there’s simply no room to fit the doors in the area they seem to disappearing into.
I’d guess the average car door, including armrests and handles, is *at least* 6 inches thick. Now, how many vehicles have space underneath the floorpan for 6 inches of door, plus the tracks to hold them? Unless it’s a Range Rover or equivalent, cars don’t have that much ground clearance to spare.
Plus, it involves cutting into the doorsills, which are part of the unibody “frame” of the car. That would not be easy or cheap to do.
Certainly a car designer could design a car from scratch with doors like this, but their sweeping claim that they can retrofit doors like this onto existing cars strikes me as a bunch of hooey.
rix said: @ 7:35 pm
January 27th, 2008
No way can this be cost competitive with two metal hinges and a handle. And if it breaks, what then? “I seem to have an electrical fault in the door and I can’t get out”
Jimmie said: @ 11:57 am
February 3rd, 2008
The people who own that company used to own a company called Joalto Design from about 1990 through 2002. They got and burned up millions of dollars from investors before going bankrupt and losing everything. Now, they have renamed themselves Jatech and are trying the push the same technologies.
John A. Townsend is the man behind the idea and he patented the “Rotary drop door” technologies. After going bankrupt, the patent filing fees were never paid and all of Joalto’s patented are in te public domain. You can google Townsend and the patents and see for yourself.
The ideas were pretty sound and he had figured out all of the safety issue that everyone is asking about, such as emergeny unlatching, etc. It simply is not a feasible idea for an aftermarket conversion.
He’s probably just collecting more money from investors. Just an opinion…