Jatech LLC has come up with the [1] 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.

YouTube link