Here’s how Genesis GV90 pulled off pillarless coach doors without sacrificing safety

INCHEON – For Genesis, going pillarless with the GV90 was never a last resort but a nonnegotiable from day one — one it upheld by putting the car through nearly three times the testing of a typical vehicle to ensure its safety. 

Many automakers have tried removing the B-pillar, the vertical post between the front and rear doors, to make coach doors, but few have gotten it into a production car. The pillar holds the doors in place and carries much of the load in a rollover or side crash, so taking it out raises serious safety problems.

“Can a car really be safe when you can’t see the pillar? A lot of people asked us that,” said Ahn Se-jin, the vice president in Genesis’s Project 2 Group, during the GV90 Tech Day for press on Wednesday in Incheon, where 12 engineers who developed the car shared the story behind it. “The answer was not to remove the pillar, but to move it where you can’t see it and reinforce the area around the door opening.”

The GV90 made its world debut in San Francisco in August, which drew global attention for putting features usually seen only in concept cars, such as pillarless coach doors and a roof airbag, into a production model. Pricing and a launch date have not been announced, but the car is widely expected to go on sale in Korea in early 2027.

The GV90’s coach door, called the Neolun Arch Gate, is the world’s first hidden B-pillar coach door in which the front and rear doors open independently. The rear door slides outward slightly and then swings open, so the two doors never get in each other’s way.

The engineers first looked at the gooseneck hinge, which is common in the car industry. But it swung too far into the cabin when the door closed, which crowded rear passengers and ate into interior space.

“We couldn’t solve it with a single motion,” said Nam Jin-woo, a part leader on Genesis’ closure engineering design team. “So we thought, instead of one, let’s find a structure that can make two independent movements, a slide and a swing, in one hinge. That’s how we came up with the dual motion hinge.”

Genesis also placed radar sensors inside the chrome garnish at the bottom of the doors to detect nearby obstacles when the doors open and close automatically. To get the radar signal through the metal plating, it used a technique called “chrome crack,” which creates tiny cracks in the plating. The garnish keeps its smooth chrome look while the sensors still detect obstacles accurately.

To make up for the missing pillar, Genesis spread the B-pillar’s role across the body frame and the inside of the doors. Ultrahigh-strength dual steel beams inside the doors take over the pillar’s job, and the points where the upper and lower latches lock in have been reinforced. 

“We ran our first roof-crush test on an early prototype about four years ago, and it failed. After refining our simulation methods and improving the body structure, the second test came close to the target,” said Chai Suk-jun, a part leader at the Genesis' structure engineering design team. 

“In the final car, the roof holds more than 14 tons-force on each side, which is among the highest of all the vehicles tested by the [Insurance Institute for Highway Safety] in North America.”

In a side impact, the steel beams inside the doors spread out the crash energy. The striker that locks into the lower latch is designed to bend rather than break, which keeps the door from flying open.

In a 60 kilometer-per-hour (37.3 miles-per-hour) perpendicular side-impact test, the GV90 still left at least 320 millimeters (12.6 inches) of survival space for occupants after the side of the body was pushed in, according to Genesis’ in-house testing.

The GV90 also has the world’s first roof airbag. In a rollover, it unfolds along the ceiling to keep occupants from being thrown out through the roof glass and to reduce head injuries from hitting the roof.

The GV90 is also the first Hyundai model with swiveling chairs, where the front seats rotate 180 degrees to face the rear seats, turning the cabin into a lounge where passengers sit facing each other. 

The seats only turn when the car is stopped, and they won’t move if someone is too close or the rear table is unfolded and there isn’t enough room.

BY SARAH CHEA   [[email protected]]