Soft closing doors

It would indeed complement the falcon wings nicely to have soft closing front doors. My previous car prior to Model S had the feature on all doors and I do miss it every time with Model S a door fails to close properly...

That said, so we have any insight into how the door handles work on the Model X? Do they extend on the front or back - or is there merely some button action on either or both. That could play into stuff like soft closing too.

 

I believe the "handles" are merely touch points and when you touch them either the front door pops open enough that you can grab the edge, or the falcon wing door opens automatically. I've never seen any evidence of extending handles like Model S has either on the original prototypes or the test vehicles.

 

Such a mechanism might involve soft close for the front doors?

 

I hadn't thought about it but I guess it's possible.

 

Good spot! I think it is highly likely that the door handles are touch only and do not move. Here's the prototype shown at CES 2015 with the door open, but door handle is still flush with the car:




Here's the door handle from the Sig Ordering page (see this thread), you can see the handle is still flush with the edge of the door, with very little space behind it for it to extend like the S:





There must be something to pop out the door when this is touched, so odds are that the same mechanism will be used to soft-close the door.

One other interesting thing I just noticed from the CES 2015 prototype ...



... there is no obvious way to open the door from the inside! Maybe touch controlled as well? Here's a good hands-on video, see if you can find it...

 

If the handles do not pop-out, then it would make it very difficult/impossible to manually pull open the door. I'd be surprised if the front doors are auto opening/closing, so therefore, I would expect the handles to pop-out in some way.

 

I guess you missed the point: what if, by pressing the handle, the door pops out and you can pull it out from the side? Given that the handle extends to the side, maybe this could happen by touching the handle with your palm while readying your fingers to pull the slightly ajar popping door fully open from the edge?

It seems surprisingly hard to find any video of how the front doors on Model X prototypes operate. Maybe I just suck at searching, but several video seems to cut out the parts where the front doors open (even if otherwise the video is a continuous walk around!), showing them just closed or open. This may be simply because there really isn't much to opening those doors on the prototypes, but it would be nice to have more video of it anyway.

This Santana Row store video is the best I could find, but it is of the 2012 prototype - it would be of interest to see if the 2013 facelift prototype is any different:

Inside the Tesla Model X - YouTube

In this video, around 0:20, the front door seems to either not fully lock in place at all or unlock by touching the handle area and open by pulling from the open window. At 0:45 the video, the front doors open perhaps through a button inside the interior door handle/pocket - the man inside the car has his hand there as the door opens. Prior to that he makes a motion on his hand that might also suggest some button or lever lower in the door, but again it may be the door doesn't even lock in properly for demo purposes.

I distinctly seem to recall a 2012 or so Elon Musk interview where he says the production Model X handles might extend but that at this point they were just buttons. Personally I don't expect extending handles on the production Model X anymore, just stating what I recall. Besides, extending handles would make major sense only on the front doors, though would be cool on the falcon wings too - they could be pullable buttons.

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For opening the front doors from inside Model X seems to have the same interior door handle as Model S?



This would make sense, of course. It still remains unclear how the handle works from the outside.

 

Good catch, I missed that!

 

My guess, albeit far fetched, would be that the Model X has a rocker-type of door handle for the front doors. You press on one side of the door handle, and it opens the other side of the handle allowing you to pull and open the door. I only say this because a fully-automated door latch doesn't seem feasible for any type of manual operation in an emergency. And the Model X doesn't seem to give the support behind the handle to have an extended door handle such as the Model S. There is another high-end car that has the type of handle I am describing. I think it is Aston Martin brand. (DBS-5 maybe?)

(I know this is my first post. I've been reading up quite a bit on this forum regarding the Model X and thought I'd add something finally.)

 

I think you are right about the Aston Martin. I have seen pictures of those in the past. Perhaps the Jaguar F Type door handles are also similar to what you are thinking about?

 

Thanks for providing clarification on this (AR and others). It would seem from this analysis, that indeed something different is going on with these door handles. I just hope it's like the Jaguar doors because I would like to see some an opening mechanism that can easily be grabbed and pulled. I don't like fancy, powered solutions because it's just more things to go wrong. I like simple.

 

Not sure there is room for this in the MX door - if you look at the edge of the "handle" on the MX it is very thin:

 

Yes, that is what I am talking about. Something that is modern, sleek, and fits the Model X perfectly. (IMO)

It would provide a button mechanism of some sort to initiate the opening of the falcon doors as well. I don't see the Falcon doors having a rocker-type handle though. And seeing the button on the bottom of the opened falcon doors in some of the pictures, they will certainly be auto-close like many mid-higher end SUVs. (Which has already been stated here.) But to operate from the outside, the button could be placed in the door handle, making it look identical to the front doors, but without the rocker mechanism.

Even though me owning a Tesla is far-fetched (a sad reality), I am extremely excited to see what Tesla does have in store for it.

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I thought it may not have enough room as well, but it could just be a structural support on the prototype. Or they could have opened up the door further inside. They have to fit the glass and door locking mechanism in their somewhere.

 

Just a point of note: The Model S door mechanisms are all electrically activated with the exception of the inside front door handles, these are also electronic, but feature a mechanical bypass in the event the electric actuator fails so you can still exit. All exterior handles are electronic with no mechanical bypass. The rear door inside handles are also only electric, but there is a mechanical bypass on each side below the seat.

 

Nice point!

And as I pointed out in another thread, the Model X front doors seem to have the same inside handles as Model S - so maybe the front door part of your message is relevant to Model X as well. That doesn't answer yet how the front door exterior handles open, though. We shall see in a less than weeks time.

Sightings: How do the Model X front doors open?

 

Confirmed yesterday by a service manager at a SF Bay Area location--no motorized extending door handles on the X. Touch operated and door pops open, then you open the door the rest of the way.

 

Many high-end cars have electro-mechanical locks, with only emergency interior overrides. As others mentioned, the MS is similar where if the car has no power at all, pulling on the extended door handle will do nothing at all.

See the stories about people in Ferraris dying because they did not know where the mechanical overrides were inside the car, in a battery failure event.

A touch-to-open mechanism seems feasible, though I suppose the question becomes is it fully electrical in opening (I think this is more likely), or it'll just pop open with using the frame for the rest (doesn't seem likely at all in my eyes, potentially dangerous for hand injury, highly inconvenient for opening when approaching from the front of the car).