In most situations where people need more seats, those seats are primarily for kids, not the people buying the vehicle or other adults, and that makes the issue of every row having its own doors less important. Your kids just get used to climbing over and around things, and it’s no big deal. The people consistently buying vehicles for more adults are mainly fleets buying vans and limos.
Also: I know you mentioned this in the original post in terms of car vs SUV, but adding length, doors, and weight will drop fuel efficiency, which may cause legal issues. Maybe not in the US, IDK, but car company platforms are global, and other countries have much stricter standards. This may make it just not worth it for what they expect the market size to be.
I wouldn’t be too surprised if we started seeing vehicles like that in the 2030s though, once self-driving vehicles become common enough (I still think it’s unlikely, just much less unlikely). People and companies have been talking for a long time about how much design freedom not needing a driver gives you, and how you can make reconfigurable interiors. Since it’s likely that ridesharing and other fleet vehicles will make up a larger proportion of cars in an autonomous vehicle world, it’s much more feasible to have a few vehicles around for less common use cases. Last-mile delivery automation product developers have come up with a lot of concepts that include vehicles with multiple independently locking compartments; it’s very plausible a six door vehicle of some sort could reuse such a platform.
In most situations where people need more seats, those seats are primarily for kids, not the people buying the vehicle or other adults, and that makes the issue of every row having its own doors less important. Your kids just get used to climbing over and around things, and it’s no big deal. The people consistently buying vehicles for more adults are mainly fleets buying vans and limos.
Also: I know you mentioned this in the original post in terms of car vs SUV, but adding length, doors, and weight will drop fuel efficiency, which may cause legal issues. Maybe not in the US, IDK, but car company platforms are global, and other countries have much stricter standards. This may make it just not worth it for what they expect the market size to be.
I wouldn’t be too surprised if we started seeing vehicles like that in the 2030s though, once self-driving vehicles become common enough (I still think it’s unlikely, just much less unlikely). People and companies have been talking for a long time about how much design freedom not needing a driver gives you, and how you can make reconfigurable interiors. Since it’s likely that ridesharing and other fleet vehicles will make up a larger proportion of cars in an autonomous vehicle world, it’s much more feasible to have a few vehicles around for less common use cases. Last-mile delivery automation product developers have come up with a lot of concepts that include vehicles with multiple independently locking compartments; it’s very plausible a six door vehicle of some sort could reuse such a platform.