Yeah, the bird_name doors aren't jiving with me. They do appear to be more practical given the constraints of the vehicle, though. With a conventional door, the swing would be quite wide for the rear doors. The rear of the vehicle isn't long enough to use the minivan-style sliding doors. Would this be any less dorky http://www.disappearing-car-door.com ?
First of all, thanks for sharing the link. I love idea of doors that fold/slide into the floor.
That said I wonder 1) if Tesla's floor mounted batteries would take up the space this tech could conceivable use and 2) if Tesla's extremely high safety rating (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6240862) would be impacted by this design (not to a degree that would lower safety beyond an average car, but not up to their high goals).