Could this patent filing preview a fundamental change in Ford truck design?
A few folks, including those over at Ford Authority, caught the most recently published Ford patent filing. The document initially made its way to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on March 11, 2022, though the document was just made available for public reading on September 21, 2023 with serial number 0294562. Not only does it show an idea for a seating system in the bed, but some also believe this inadvertently previews the F-Series’ next-generation T3 platform cab design, showing a far more passenger-focused layout than that of the incumbent trucks including the revamped fourteenth-generation F-150.
This latest idea tracks with Ford’s other patent filings. Those include cargo area seating for SUVs, and this idea for pickup truck bed seating aims to offer similar flexibility. After all, more owners are buying trucks as their go-everywhere, do-everything vehicles, meaning they also need practical ideas to ferry passengers from A to B while retaining the ability to tow and haul stuff around.
This Ford patent application describes the system like this: “A vehicle seating system includes a support feature coupled to a sidewall within a cargo space of a vehicle…The seating assembly is rotatable between a stowed position and a deployed position.” Several figures within the document (click here to see more) uses the truck’s accessory mounting setup to install seats into the bed wall. They can either be stowed in an upright position to allow you to use most of the bed space, folded down to expand seating, or removed entirely, like you would a bed rack or cargo rail system. Adjustable supports fold down from the center-facing end of the seat base (referred to as the “distal end” in the application), so you can set the bed-mounted seats to a comfortable height for each rear occupant.
What about safety for those sitting in the bed?
If you’ve been basically anywhere in America, then you’re well aware that folks sitting in the bed of a moving truck is something that happens. You may not see it all the time these days, but I’d wager nearly everyone has seen it happen at least once. You don’t typically see OEM-designed jump seats that you could feasibly order with your new truck, though — at least not since the days of the Subaru Brat.
You might think this sort of bed seating system is more of a tailgating gimmick than an actual people-carrying solution. However, Ford’s langauge in the patent document optimistically suggests this could work in some future application. “While all modern Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) of passenger vehicles currently warn occupants against sitting in the bed of a pickup truck while the vehicle is moving due to safety concerns”, the company says, “it is anticipated that technology and the regulatory framework may evolve in the future to where such an activity is safe and permissible.”
Mind you, that is pretty idealistic given how the federal government and individual states govern people sitting in truck beds. Arguably, though, Ford’s logic centers around lounge-like designs we’re seeing in concept cars these days, especially as companies work to develop self-driving systems. With such ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) in place, automakers could potentially lobby regulators to change the rules to allow ideas like this seating concept to actually move forward as factory or dealer-installed setups.
Like any other patent application, though, this is just an idea for the time being. If the winds shift, Ford could use the F-Series’ existing mounting points to fairly easily put rear bed seats into production. We’ll have to wait and see.
Then there’s the cab itself…
Again, patent drawings are conceptual by nature, so take the idea that Ford inadvertently leaked its next-gen cab design with a massive grain of salt. Nonetheless, there are a few interesting ideas at play in these drawings, once you look beyond the bed seating system.
To start, this truck’s cab certainly does not look like an existing or past F-150 (as the second figure clearly does). Instead, the figure shows a much longer crew cab layout with a substantially shorter bed and much more space behind the rear seats. Rather than a rear bench, this truck has executive-style seating with two additional bucket seats and a large center console between them.
Looking toward the use case of most modern trucks as passenger and commuter vehicles over just being sheer workhorses, that makes some sense. Ford could, if something like what’s in this patent application comes to fruition, offer more comfort for fewer passengers, then supplement the need for additional seats in the bed when owners actually need to carry more people. Otherwise, you get more storage space and a more comfortable seating position.
Not only that, but I have a hunch such a design could accommodate Max Recline seats on the second row, as well as the front…so rear seat passengers could lie down when the truck’s moving. Either that, or you just get more storage space with the seats able to move farther back, completely out of the way of the C-pillar, so you have more room to store items inside the cab rather than in the bed. Even with the shorter bed, this layout offers a little bit of SUV and a little bit of pickup truck. It’s a little bit country, and a little bit rock-and-roll.
Could there be a midgate?
Ford’s patent drawing also shows what looks like a handle mounted near the rear of the cabin. While the rear seats may have extra space to fold down, it appears the upper panel could (by use of that handle) actually fold down flush behind the rear seats, so you’d have a midgate. If so, that could be a clever solution, since you’d have more storage, more rear seat room or extra bed length to make up for the shorter 4-5-foot bed design. In the “extra bed space” scenario, you could fold down a midgate, fold down the second-row seats and move the console forward to maximize cargo capacity.
Finally, there’s the matter of the strangely large dashboard. This drawing shows a mock-up of a truck with a long, rectangular infotainment screen (possibly with driver information displayed on the left side?), then acres of dashboard space. As with everything else, your guess is as good as mine what the instrument panel may entail, or whether this is even foreshadowing Ford’s new truck design at all.
Since the 2024 Ford F-150 just debuted and the company just redesigned the Super Duty, it will likely be a couple years before we see any major changes in either the half-ton or heavy duty trucks. We’ll keep an eye out for more developments, but let us know your thoughts in the meantime.
