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Model X Doors / Door Handles

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The presentation mentioned the default front door opening is 45 degrees "when enabled" so it's something you'd turn off (and hopefully will have a GPS and even time-based rule to avoid continually presenting like a cat in heat every time someone walks by ...) It also only activates from the angle of approach (not from the front) and uses through-metal proximity sensors to limit the angle before touching most obstructions. Parking next to a tall curb or storm gutter could be a problem. It wasn't clear if the sensors map the full space of just certain areas where the door might make contact.

The obvious thing being, while the Falcon doors won't ding the adjacent car, the oaf that parks so close will already have dinged the hell out of those long door panels on the X ...
 
This is also my concern. As a Model S owner, sometimes I park at metered space. Whenever I pass through the metered space to "recharge" the meter, the door handle pops out. Now imagine, when I reach my parking space and not actually leaving (for example, to refill the meter), the door pops out every time...that would be quite embarrassing.
 
On model S if you have tech package, the handles CAN auto-present with key walk-by's.
They don't HAVE too, but will if you've configured them that way.
You can turn it off if you find it's an annoyance (novelty worn off).
Some people / threads have suggested making the feature geo located opt-off spots (not in my garage!)

Probably same goes for X, you can opt-out on the control panel to NOT auto-present doors.

When the dust settles, auto-present doors are probably part of a tech package, that you can opt out of entirely.. just like model S.

The problem with doors that have no external mechanical pulls and release is rescue.
The firefighters always have to cut them off, versus a strong pull, or yank with a winch.

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Self opening doors: unnecessary weight adder, unnecessary price, complexity and delay....

no wonder these things are late coming out
 
Seemed too slow to be useful. I get bored* waiting for the trunk to raise, waiting for the door seems like it would be tedious, plus I frequent am near the car and don't require the door to open...I'm sure they've thought it through, but there's some complicated logic needed to ensure it's actually a useful feature.

* Relative term, I know it's not that long to wait, and, a first-world problem.
 
The motion sensing feature seemed unnecessary to me. I can't think of a time that I ever needed a car door to open and close automatically. Hopefully the feature can be disabled or configured to only open if the handle is touched.

I generally agree and will end up disabling the auto open, and I'm assuming that can be done. (If not, that is just bad).

The ONLY positive I can think of is that I wouldn't have to deal with hot as hell handles in Phoenix sun any more. But that is way over engineering for a solution to a problem that started with over engineering...
 
better yet, what happens when your parrallel parked on the street? you walk up the the car, the driver side auto-opens and then BAM somebody sidewipes it and takes the door clean off. and of course we all know what happens next -> then the repair bill will be so high it'll be deemed a 'total loss' by insurance. so basically this feature may cause your car to become 'totaled'.
 
better yet, what happens when your parrallel parked on the street? you walk up the the car, the driver side auto-opens and then BAM somebody sidewipes it and takes the door clean off. and of course we all know what happens next -> then the repair bill will be so high it'll be deemed a 'total loss' by insurance. so basically this feature may cause your car to become 'totaled'.

Well if it senses your approach then you should be in the street as well. I'd imagine the door doesn't swing open much wider than your body and if a car hits the door then it was dangerously close to you as well. Plus, you should be there to catch it.
 
if the X no longer has functional door handles, and even more so if there is still no EXTERIOR mechanical release, I fear more situations like this will happen which is a design defect:

Door crushed on my 3yo daughter's hand, door handle failure to release lock, STUCK

That incident was user error. 100%. The impediment to opening was your daughter's hand. I'm glad it didn't open.

Still, having a discussion about safe closing doors is important and id like to see a video. To be fair to Tesla engineers, the trunk hatch seems to recognize crushing.
 
I think this is a great feature and it's functionality can be tweaked so that it works better.

I really hope people complaining about this does not result in them not implementing this feature in the Model S. For those who don't like this, you can always turn the feature off. After watching the video last night I got in my car today pressed the brake pedal and wondered how nice it would have been if that caused the door to close.

The auto opening front door is one of the nicest feature I saw in the Model X reveal. I hope it is implemented also in the Model S.
 
As a (former) engineer, I think the front doors might run the risk of violating the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), and could become a reliability issue.
The door mechanism introduces the sort of mechanical complexity that EVs (mostly) avoid by avoiding the ICE power train with its thousands of parts.

On the other hand --Some other cars, such as some recent Mercedes models, have similar features. I wonder how their reliability has been? It may be that there are proven designs that do turn out to be reliable.
 
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With doors that present themselves by automatically opening, door handles become redundant. I think Elon has an eye that sees redundancies and he has fun eliminating them. I lol when an OS update changed , CRUISE ON to CRUISE, The word, ON being redundant. I think the Model X just made door handles, redundant.
 
As a (former) engineer, I think the front doors run the risk of violating the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), an could become an unnecessary reliability issue.
The door mechanism introduces the sort of mechanical complexity that EVs (mostly) avoid by avoiding the ICE power train with its thousands of parts.

I agree. It is cool (somewhat) in a demo but I think it will turn out that most people will end up turning it off and then just would like some door handles back.

You now have to grab the doors by their edge as Elon did on stage. Not ideal.

I like gizmos as much as anyone but this seems finding a solution for a problem that wasn't there. I hope to be proven wrong once I have the car.
 
I like gizmos as much as anyone but this seems finding a solution for a problem that wasn't there. I hope to be proven wrong once I have the car.

gjunky, you and I are a single digit apart in the reservation queue. I am feeling like your statement quoted above currently applies to a lot of the MX. I'll be interested to see if there are any changes by the time they ask us to configure, which I'm assuming will be in the February/March timeframe.