Hacker News Reader

Comment by chuckcode | Hacker News Reader

All it takes is a billionaire genius with twin kids and a car company to finally engineer a real solution to the hassle of having room to put kids in the car seats.

I sure hope some of these ideas come in a slightly more affordable version. Amazing how many of the innovations are just everyday things like crash safety, air quality, blind holster your phone, trailer hitch that doesn't suck, and easier to get kids in their car seats - yet they have me drooling as even after 100+ years of mass auto production there are so many daily frustrations with cars.

View on HN

In all seriousness, how does the Model X improve buckling your kids over a sliding minivan door? Never had trouble with this, I've owned a car, truck, SUV and minivan with young kids.

Biggest headache? The kids buckling themselves. The seatbelt always locks (they pull too fast), the buckles get smushed into the seat bench, and before you know it I have exited the car, just to help them put it altogether.

Yep. I love the performance of Tesla's cars, but a humble minivan already has (far less attractive) sliding doors with very large openings.

To be fair to Tesla, Elon Musk did address this around two-thirds of the way through his presentation yesterday, saying "when the minivan door is open I can't even get through that space." I suspect he'd also say the Model X's doors provide a vertical opening in addition to a side opening, which can be useful for adults in the second or third row.

On the other hand, I've driven a Honda minivan quite a bit and I can't think of any times when I couldn't squeeze through the available space when the minivan door was open in a parking lot. So there is a bit of solving a problem that may not be very much of one.

The Model S (and presumably the X, at it uses the same wheelbase) is a _very_ wide car, wider than most minivans, so I suspect your Honda minivan is just narrower and won't run into this problem as much as those that drive the model X (or the S drivers today)

honda odyssey width 79.2"

tesla model S width 77.3"

Out of curiosity, how tall are you? I think he said a big part of the problem with minivans is that you can hit your head on the roof while trying to lean in to snap the buckles. With the falcon wing doors, the roof flips up too. Obviously if you are blessed to be average height, that may not be a problem for you.

As a tall person, I am excited that Elon is tall and getting them to consider the problems of not being average height =)

73 inches - owned a 2006 Honda Odyssey, don't remember bashing my head ...or maybe I did and can't remember because of said bashing.

Most everything in my world was designed for someone 3-4 inches shorter than I. I kid with my wife if I ever build my own house (post kids), everything will be taller.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com