I've seen a lot of talk on this from various threads about the benefits and drawbacks of suicide doors, with obviously a large number of people refusing to buy a car with such an annoying door type.
What if Tesla is planning on a solution, though, that'd take care of the drawbacks of suicide doors?
Here's my wild guess about Model 3 suicide doors: They'd have a normally-positioned door handle or open button on the interior, and they can be opened without the front doors being open. To elaborate, the rear doors could be fully electrical in nature (similar to the MX doors). When pulling the rear door handle, the front door pops open a tad just as the Model X doors do without the auto-present/open packages prior to the suicide doors opening. Rear occupants would be able to fully let themselves out of the suicide door unassisted. Or possibly (but not as likely in my opinion), the front doors can remain closed while the suicide doors open.
To deal with the inconvenience of closing the front doors before the rear doors accidentally, the front doors would automatically make themselves slightly ajar if closed before the rear doors are closed; once the rear doors close, the front doors would just close up automatically.
Why suicide doors? If anyone has taken a look at the BMW i3, they can see some clear advantages to them--the rear occupant space and ease of entry vehicle is absolutely tremendous given the relatively tiny length of the car. For a highly aerodynamic car, suicide doors allow a much larger headroom for ingress and exit because the traditional pillars are not present and rear passengers enter near the apex of the car's height. Given the Model X's insane focus on falcon wing doors for having easy-access to rear seats (especially for parents/kids), this also seems like a logical design decision. They also can probably borrow a lot from the MX safety design due to non-traditional doors.
I've seen comments in other threads that electro-mechanical doors are possibly cheaper and less complex than traditional mechanical car doors, along with space-saving benefits for the interior. Given the aerodynamic goals while keeping interior space high, the electro-mechanical doors are almost certainly included base-line, anyways, with touch-activated door handles on the exterior.
I'm curious if the anti-suicide door crowd (myself included in this!) would buy a car if it had a system like the above, and if there are any other drawbacks that Tesla may not be able to address.
What if Tesla is planning on a solution, though, that'd take care of the drawbacks of suicide doors?
Here's my wild guess about Model 3 suicide doors: They'd have a normally-positioned door handle or open button on the interior, and they can be opened without the front doors being open. To elaborate, the rear doors could be fully electrical in nature (similar to the MX doors). When pulling the rear door handle, the front door pops open a tad just as the Model X doors do without the auto-present/open packages prior to the suicide doors opening. Rear occupants would be able to fully let themselves out of the suicide door unassisted. Or possibly (but not as likely in my opinion), the front doors can remain closed while the suicide doors open.
To deal with the inconvenience of closing the front doors before the rear doors accidentally, the front doors would automatically make themselves slightly ajar if closed before the rear doors are closed; once the rear doors close, the front doors would just close up automatically.
Why suicide doors? If anyone has taken a look at the BMW i3, they can see some clear advantages to them--the rear occupant space and ease of entry vehicle is absolutely tremendous given the relatively tiny length of the car. For a highly aerodynamic car, suicide doors allow a much larger headroom for ingress and exit because the traditional pillars are not present and rear passengers enter near the apex of the car's height. Given the Model X's insane focus on falcon wing doors for having easy-access to rear seats (especially for parents/kids), this also seems like a logical design decision. They also can probably borrow a lot from the MX safety design due to non-traditional doors.
I've seen comments in other threads that electro-mechanical doors are possibly cheaper and less complex than traditional mechanical car doors, along with space-saving benefits for the interior. Given the aerodynamic goals while keeping interior space high, the electro-mechanical doors are almost certainly included base-line, anyways, with touch-activated door handles on the exterior.
I'm curious if the anti-suicide door crowd (myself included in this!) would buy a car if it had a system like the above, and if there are any other drawbacks that Tesla may not be able to address.
