Mazda has shown its first ever mass market electric car, the MX-30, at the Tokyo Motor Show, and it has caused a stir.

The compact crossover vehicle (pictured) comes with very unusual doors. Mazda calls them centre-opening double doors — think of those grand double doors in palaces and manor houses, where the butler reaches out and sweeps open two doors, one to the left and one to the right.

The front half of the double door opens as you would expect, with the hinge to the front in the usual way. But the rear half opens towards the back, with the hinge at the rear rather than in the centre pillar — there is no centre pillar.

And unlike regular car doors, these open almost at right angles — the front doors to 82° and the rear doors to 80°.

According to Mazda, the doors design aims to “offer not only a new choice for customers but new and life-enriching ways of using and spending time with your car”, claiming that “the adoption of the freestyle doors not only enhances functionality but opens up a wide range of new and creative uses for the MX-30”.

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The vehicle is powered by a 35.5kWh lithium-ion battery and while there are no official figures as yet to tell us the car’s range, AutoCar reports that its 35.5kWh battery has an expected range of around 200kms between charges.

The MX-30 has all the latest safety features, with Mazda tweaks such as the injury and damage-mitigating brake technology, Smart Brake Support, which adds a collision prevention function at intersections. Another new technology helps to avoid deviation from the driving lane by monitoring the curb, in addition to lane markings.

Mazda plans to start accepting orders next summer, and expects the car to ship in Japan in the second half 2020 and to arrive in Europe in early 2021.