I'm worried that some kid will lose their fingers because of the falcon wing doors. What happens when somebody puts their hand to the gap between the door and the frame and someone else on the outside leans to the door?
A lot of people will buy the MX as a family car and they will pick up their kids from school. The falcon wing doors already attract a lot of attention among kids and it is very easy to imagine a scenario where the kid and some friends walk together towards the MX as they keep talking. Then the child jumps in to the car. The other kids are outside. They keep talking a little more. The parent is in the driver's seat.
Then either the parent or the child presses the button and the door starts closing. But the kids outside keep talking about some last second thing. From here on things are very different between a traditional car door and the falcon wing doors.
Firstly with a traditional car door closing the door takes only one second. If somebody started talking as you are closing the rear door, you would either stop closing the door or you would close it and then lower the window. With the MX, closing the door and then lowering the window is not quick enough. There is just too much delay. Some people especially kids would rather quickly stop the door and continue talking for a few seconds.
The second and most unfortunate difference is that the easiest and fastest way to stop the door from closing is to put your hand in the gap to trigger the sensors which will stop the door. With a tradition door there is never any reason at all why somebody would want to put their hand between the door and the frame on purpose. But with the MX door the sensors become a reason to do that. Kids might even trigger the sensors for fun. Some kids will interrupt the door from closing by putting their hand in the gap on purpose so they can just have a few more words with their friends outside.
But at that moment, the kid's hand is between the door and the frame, what happens if somebody accidentally bumps into the door or leans to it?
Some people will argue that fingers can be smashed with regular doors too if you put your hand in the gap. However with regular doors there was no reason to put your hand where it might be smashed. With the MX the reason is to trigger the sensors. It increases the risk a lot, maybe 1000 times. I guess we will see some statistics in the future about smashed fingers.
Tesla has not shown that they have thought through the security aspect of gimmick features. For example the MS door handles should retract if they are obstructed but they don't. Why don't they? Here is a picture of a little girl who had her fingers stuck in a MS door handle:
Model S Photo Gallery - Page 9
Another possible scenario could be like this:
The car is parked on the side of the road. The driver side faces the road. The parent opens the driver side rear door. The kid sits. Then instead waiting by the door for it to close (many parents wouldn't wait outside the rear door for it to close because it takes too much time) the parent does one of two things: either she sits on the driver's seat and closes the rear door from there or she presses the button under the open door and proceeds immediately to the drivers seat.
The door starts moving down but near the end is interrupted by the kids hand. It stops but the kids hand is still in the gap because this is a little kid who doesn't understand. At that moment a cyclist is passing by who expects the door to fully close before he is next to the car but the door doesn't close therefore the cyclist loses balance and holds to the door from the outside to stop hitting the car and to push himself away. These things happen. I have seen cyclist videos on youtube where a car door opened the moment a cyclist was passing and the cyclist slammed the door back and closed it.
Being a cyclist myself I once hit a car from behind because it was turning to a side road, I was going straight on the main road and I expected it to clear but it suddenly stopped. I hit it and broke it's tail light. I can image a cyclist watching the door close and thinking it will shut by the time but then it stops or even worse starts opening again. Yes the door doesn't open too far. It maybe adds only 20cm width but cyclists sometimes drive close to parked cars.
This page says surgery to reattaching a finger would cost $600.000 to $750.000. If there are even a few finger injuries how will this effect car insurance quotes for MX? If it becomes too expensive to insure nobody will drive it even if they don't have little kids. Of course families with little kids will stop driving it the moment first finger injuries hit the news. Was this falcon wing gimmick really necessary? I don't think it was.