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Living with Falcon Wing Doors - Thumbs up, down, or both?

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What about snow? I guess a few Model X are delivered in NY (and other areas with snow). I would really like to know how the X handles snow and weather well below 0 degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit?)


I am on day 10 of Model X ownership, and the first 7 have been snowy. The sensors running along the bottom of the falcon wing door are touch sensors. When my falcon wing door was covered with Snow, they worked as well as when completely clean.

I have had no issues with snow, high winds, or temperatures below freezing (10 degrees Fahrenheit).
 
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I have to say that I'm impressed... I know its only been a month, but I havent seen any mention yet of a broken or nonfunctional falcon wing... Which, quite honestly, I expected to see quite soon after delivery. I wonder if they had a test rig that just opened and closed 24h a day to see how many repetitions they could get out of one without incident on average. By now there are likely over 1,000 in the hands of real people testing them, many of them likely enthusiast who would report back to a forum of some kind.

Would be interesting if these became the standard in the high dollar SUV/CUV market after this. Maybe even on just one side of the vehicle to get all the benefits of the door, while leaving the other side "regular" to avoid the pitfalls so many people are concerned with (Snow, mechanical failure, etc...)
 
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Would be interesting if these became the standard in the high dollar SUV/CUV market after this. Maybe even on just one side of the vehicle to get all the benefits of the door, while leaving the other side "regular" to avoid the pitfalls so many people are concerned with (Snow, mechanical failure, etc...)

I don't see other automakers incurring the costs of engineering, building, and implementing FWD. There's a reason that Tesla is the first company to put gullwing/falcon-wing doors on a *mass-production* vehicle since DeLorean Motor Company 35 years ago: they're not easy. Or cheap. And perhaps not coincidentally, both of those companies were/are headed by dominant personalities who literally insisted the vehicle have gullwing/FWD.
 
But now that Tesla has designed such a door and produced it in quantity, I see no major obstacle to driving down the production cost and making something that once seemed impossibly difficult and exotic into something that is ubiquitous. You know, like connecting thousands of commercial Lion cells together to produce an efficient EV battery pack.
 
I have to say that I'm impressed... I know its only been a month, but I havent seen any mention yet of a broken or nonfunctional falcon wing...
Mine were working at delivery, but after a software update, the right FWD stopped working completely. The touchscreen had a blank button instead of the word, "Open". So the vehicle knew that the door could not be opened, yet there were no error messages. It took the Service Center to get the door working again.

There was one time where the sensor got fooled into thinking something was next to the door. It would only open partially, not enough for persons to enter or exit. Thankfully a user can override the sensor and force the door to open completely by holding the door switch or key fob.

BTW, there is a manual override discussed elsewhere. The door can be completely opened and closed physically if the normal buttons are not working. It isn't easy to do, and I would recommend using another FWD if possible.
 
Mine were working at delivery, but after a software update, the right FWD stopped working completely. The touchscreen had a blank button instead of the word, "Open". So the vehicle knew that the door could not be opened, yet there were no error messages. It took the Service Center to get the door working again.

There was one time where the sensor got fooled into thinking something was next to the door. It would only open partially, not enough for persons to enter or exit. Thankfully a user can override the sensor and force the door to open completely by holding the door switch or key fob.

BTW, there is a manual override discussed elsewhere. The door can be completely opened and closed physically if the normal buttons are not working. It isn't easy to do, and I would recommend using another FWD if possible.

Thats interesting, and while thats a totally valid problem it sounds more like a software/communication issue. Not that those arent important, but I was mainly thinking of "my door snapped in half" or other mechanical issues like alignment problems, parts breaking, etc...
 
Thats interesting, and while thats a totally valid problem it sounds more like a software/communication issue. Not that those arent important, but I was mainly thinking of "my door snapped in half" or other mechanical issues like alignment problems, parts breaking, etc...
The Service Center has ordered two new hardware internals for the falcon wing doors. They didn't give details, but the parts have been ordered. At least Tesla Motors is being proactive by replacing some earlier version of hardware they feel is necessary to replace before a failure may occur.
 
Elon Musk said in an interview in China that they are starting to work on different opening angles, like to protect you from the rain and such. If people are worried about getting snow inside they could just open door from the second joint so it would act more like a traditional gull wing door.
 
I really wish they were optional. I know I'll love them and they are certainly a trademark feature of this vehicle. And I'm sure they'll get the kinks worked out eventually...but in reality, building a square wheel just because you can doesn't inherently make it better than a round wheel. And I'd rather save the cost over the cool factor and alleged convenience.
 
Extremely illogical analogy. Square wheels don't serve any purpose whereas Falcon Wing Doors do. Who knows maybe we see more car manufacturers build these doors.

It was a bit of hyperbole to make a point. Just because you can make suicide doors doesn't make them better than classic rear facing doors . Just because you can replace the steering wheel with a joy stick doesn't make it better. Whether you like the analogy or not doesn't refute my point.