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In the Model S, it wouldn’t have been easy to add grab handles. The A pillar as well as the headliner area above each door have airbags in them. There was simply nothing in the design that allowed for grab handles and also allowed for the number of airbags that Tesla wanted and the placement that they had in mind.
Tesla could have come up with some way of changing this for the Model 3, but they apparently didn’t think that the lack of grab handles would cause enough lost sales that it would warrant adding them.
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