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A Superior Design for Automotive Ingress/Egress: Daihatsu's Assymetrical Tanto

By Rain Noe - October 14, 2013

in Cars

The old saw is that industrial designers design not just objects, but the very experiences of the people that use those objects. With sophisticated objects like cars, the opportunities for imbalance are rife; for example, your average auto designer designs the experience of people sitting inside the car—but rarely, it seems, the experience of getting in and out of the car.

This morning I watched an elderly woman with a cane try to get into the back of a Crown Victoria taxi, and it was brutal: Grab the handle, swing the door open, stop because the pointy part of the door is going to hit you, step back, pull the door the rest of the way open, sort of sidestep-shuffle towards the inside of the car, lean your weight to one side to lift one leg to step sideways inside, use your hand for support on the still-movable door, try to fold your body into the appropriate shape to slide inside sideways, you get the idea.

For the sake of the elderly or physically challenged, it would be nice to see more passenger cars designed like the Daihatsu Tanto. Belonging to the tiny Japanese-market "kei car" class of vehicles, the Tanto is designed assymetrically: The curb side of the vehicle has no B-pillar at all, and a powered sliding door. (While you've seen powered sliding doors before on even U.S.-market vehicles, you've never seen one without a B-pillar.)

The Tanto's ingress/egress design is not new; the car was first debuted at the Tokyo Motor Show some ten years ago, and the production model rolled out shortly thereafter. So I wish we'd see more automakers pursuing design elements like this—I'd especially love to see Nissan integrate this into their NYC Taxi of Tomorrow.

If you want to see some characteristically quirky Japanese commercials of the Tanto, click here.

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Brian Piper

11 years ago

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Looks like Nissan already had this one covered with this gem - the 1986 'Stanza': http://magazinesadsandbooks.com/Magazine-Ad-for-Nissan-1986-Stanza-Wagon-Car-Side-View-Sliding-Door-1985-P2184308.aspx

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Ray Jepson

11 years ago

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Ford's new European B-Max features pillarless doors on both sides. Sliding door in back and a hinged door in front.
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Toby

11 years ago

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It's an appealing design, but I wonder how removing the pillar alters its side-impact resistance?
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