also what about when someone parks too close to you? Malls, for instance, put parking spaces tightly next to each other, so either you park like an asshole diagonally across two of them, or run the risk of someone else parking just a little bit too close to you and then your doors can't open, whereas in a standard vehicle, you'd be able to squeeze in. They should have made them slide laterally like on a minivan.
If you watch the presentation (or look for some .gifs around) you'll see they parked some of them pretty close to each other and the doors opened just fine. I think that's a minor issue given you can "flood" your car during a severe rain :-)
They also opened the slide doors on the minivan on one side, showing that the mini van door blocks the entryway, whereas the wing doors don't.
I think in tight spaces, the wing doors have sliding doors beat. It has disadvantages, but purely from a space usage perspective it's a pretty good solution.
They are far superior to normal car doors for this situation. You'll quite likely find yourself unable to use the driver's door, but still able to get out the back!
The site says the minimum distance required is about a foot which is reasonable given that the protruding rear view mirrors would be close to half of that.
I certainly cannot get out of either of my cars with just 12 inches of space. The door thickness alone in around 6 inches. No way is my body squeezing through a 6 inch opening in anything short of an emergency and it's very unlikely even then.
