Long-Term Tesla Model Y: How It Rates in Extreme-Winter Testing

Speaker 1: Sliding sideways on the ice is my favorite thing to do in a car. I've been ice racing for about 15 years now. And as soon as we got this Tesla model, Y in on a lease, I knew I had to bring it out on a lake, the conditions this winter Haven been great, but finally, everything has come together and I've got this whole lake to see just how good our Tesla model Y does on the frozen net. Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Now, before we get going, I want to be very clear about something. Don't try this at home. Seriously, a frozen body of water is not something to take for grand without serious safety precautions, especially when you're dealing with a car that weighs 4,400 pounds. Like our long term model wide dual motor long range does for reference that's as much as a Ford F-150 Supercab. Seriously, look it up. Thankfully for our filming, I was [00:01:00] able to piggyback on the efforts of the Aron motor enthusiast club who held an event there just the day previous. I am very thankful to the many volunteers of AMEC who tested the ice in numerous locations and found it to be in excess of 14 inches thick, plenty enough to support our Porky little SUV. Now, if you do have a good, safe stretch of ice, you're also going to want a few other things before engaging in a day, a like this thermal layers, for sure, to keep the frostbite away warm boots with grippers on the bottom so that you don't slip and break [00:01:30] your head open. And perhaps most importantly, a very good set of tires. Speaker 1: So this is a Nokian haw 10. This is the tire that I actually race with on my Subaru. And this is the 10 EV that we've got fitted on our Tesla here. And as soon as Nokia now, also, they were making an EV version of the haw series. I knew that that's the tower that I wanted to test. I've been running haw on my Subarus for over 10 years now, and they're great for the ice, but they're always really loud and on an EV application of that to be really interesting to see how they perform. And I've been impressed so far. Now, if you look at the two side by side here, [00:02:00] the compound and the tread pattern are very similar, but the compound is actually different and that's something you can't see, but the tread pattern roughly the same, the stud layout is roughly the same as well. Speaker 1: Although the studs look to be a little bit more spread out and maybe even a few fewer studs on the 10 EV than on the 10, but on the 10 NOKs got stud arrangement that varies from the center of the tire to the outer edge of the tire. The studs in the middle are really oriented to give you maximum grip four forward acceleration and break as well. While the studs on the outside are pointed to the side to give you more grip while turning. So [00:02:30] it's a really nice and interesting orientation they've added here this year. The differences between these two really are hard to see the big one being a compound difference. The 10 EVs had to be a lower rolling resistance tire than the normal 10. And on the inside, the 10 EV has a layer foam. Now the foam is here to cut down on noise, which is of course a huge important thing when you're driving around in an EV a lot of higher end tires, especially for EVs do have that layer of foam. Speaker 1: That's pretty rare to find on a winter tire these days, especially on a stud winter [00:03:00] tire. And it makes a huge difference between these two tires. Um, my Subaru, these tires are incredibly loud. You can hear the studs at any speed, but on the 10 EV and the model, why as soon as you get up to about 25, maybe 30 miles an hour, the sound of the studs, which sounds a little bit like you're driving on popcorn. It just disappears. It's actually a, a nice tire to drive on. The other difference internally is that the side walls on these winter tires are a lot softer than on the all season tires that the model Y comes with that's to make sure that the tire can deformed a little bit better [00:03:30] and give you the maximum grip on snowy conditions or icy conditions like we're on today. Speaker 1: And that actually improves the ride quality of the model. Y one of my complaints with the model Y is that it's a little bit hard, harsh over bumps with the softer side walls. It's actually more pleasant to drive. So if anything else, you've got a better ride quality and way better grip out on the ice like this one final note on tires, unless you're doing extreme winter driving. If you don't absolutely need to get where you're going, regardless of conditions, then the hot tens, they might be more tire than you actually need. They are among [00:04:00] the most capable tires in the road, but they're also quite expensive and probably overkill for most drivers options. Like the Bridgestone Blizzak or Michelin X ice are a little less hardcore and a little easier on the wallet too. But right now, there just aren't that many EV specific snow tires out there. Speaker 1: And in my testing, the Nokian have really impressed. Now, normally the first thing that I would do in driving on a lake in a car would be to turn off all the traction and stability control systems. And in some cars I'll even start pulling fus to disable the [00:04:30] abs. I don't do that because I hate those systems. Although I really don't like them in general. It's because I want the car to act as predictably as possible. And when you're trying to fight against traction and stability control systems, the car can do things that I don't necessarily want it to do. If I'm in a slide, I want to be able to correct that slide. I don't want the car to be fighting against me and trying to correct that slide itself in the Tesla. I can't actually do that. You can't disable any of those systems. Speaker 1: There is what's called a slip start system that you can enable, which will give you a little bit more wheel spin, but that [00:05:00] deactivates itself as an, as you get any speed going, Tesla also used to have a hidden Dyna mode that you could get through by digging into some hidden menus here in the touchscreen. But that is no longer here, because, well, when you went into Dyna mode, it turned off all the attractions to build controls, basically exactly what I want, but a few people unfortunately used that mode to do some drifting stuff. And some of them wrecked their cars and well to is led disabled to thing. So I am stuck with full traction, full stability control, always on. And so I'm honestly not sure how much fun I'm gonna be able to have here in the lake, but we're gonna find out [00:05:30] I'm gonna start with a real simple test, which is gonna be basically, can I do a hard acceleration with my hands off the wheel and have the car continues straight ahead? And then I'm gonna do the same thing under breaking. So here we go, hands off the wheel foot to the floor. Speaker 1: Yeah. Actually did a really nice job. Okay. I came to the side a little bit there. I had to catch, but overall I did a really nice job. The surface of the lake is relatively good at this point, pretty even, but there is some differences of grip as you go from snow to ice in the car actually did a really nice job of balancing between the two. We got things going straight ahead, [00:06:00] but I could definitely feel that it was cutting power and down here in the touchscreen, I could see that traction control, light blinking at me. I'm gonna turn around. We're gonna do that in reverse. Basically, I'm gonna get to speed and then hit the brakes and make sure that this thing can break in a straight line that the abs is, is tracking true. So we'll get up to about 40 miles an hour here and then hands out the wheel at the brakes. Speaker 1: And again, yeah, the car did a great job of breaking, even though I was going between snow and ice and different tires were on different levels of grip. The car stayed perfectly straight and broken and nice straight lines. [00:06:30] So that's pretty impressive. Uh, the abs was definitely engaging. I could feel the pedal vibrating a little bit. I could hear it activating, but did a real good job making sure that the car stay straight true. So from a pure safety standpoint, we're doing pretty good, but I'm not out here just to be safe. I'm out here to have a little bit fun. So let's get up to speed here and go around a fast corner and see what happens when I try to get some speed up and try to get a little drift going. So I'll turn the car in. And I get big under steer, lots of big steer, put my foot to the floor to try to power through it. Speaker 1: And literally nothing happens at all. The car is completely [00:07:00] cutting all of my, all my throttle input, all my power, which means I can't really power through the drift, which is a little bit of a bummer as I'm trying out here to have fun. Now that is a safe thing because I can actually hear the stability control system. I can hear the, the brakes activating of the different corners of the car to get the car, to turn and to keep the car in line. What I want is the car to step out. I want the rear end to hang out. I want to have a big power slide steering, all that good stuff, the stability control system. Isn't letting me have that. So for me, having a fun [00:07:30] time out here today, it's a little bit of a bummer, but from a stability control system, from a safety standpoint, that's actually a good thing. Speaker 1: That means that if you're out there to driving on the road and you lose control and you want to go over there and you just turn the wheel over there to try to get there, and there's not enough grip to do so, the car's actually gonna work really hard to help you out to try to get you to that point, breaking the inside wheels, not the outside wheels, to get the car, to rotate a little bit more cutting power, to make sure that you don't do something that you don't want to do, and ultimately helping you to get where you want it to go. So from a [00:08:00] hooning standpoint, from a pure drifting, having fun standpoint, maybe not the most fun, but from a safety standpoint, it's definitely encouraging to know that Tesla safety systems are doing what they're supposed to do. And I can actually get out here and have a little bit of good time. Speaker 1: You can see, I got a little bit of a counter steer going there, but as soon as I got beyond maybe, oh, I don't know, five or 10 degrees in this during wheel here, the power just immediately cut. I felt the abs kick in, even though I wasn't on the brake, I could feel the abs hitting and I could feel the car just immediately cut in power and basically ending [00:08:30] my fun. Now, if you saw my earlier video where I was up in Alaska, Tesla's proving grounds up there, sliding around and model SS and model three. These, you might be wondering, well, how is Tim able to do that for one thing, the model three that I was driving up, there was a performance model. And when you get into track mode, you can actually have a pretty good time. The other thing that's different up there was, uh, I usually had a Tesla engineer with a laptop sitting in the passenger seat who was able to turn off all the systems for me if I wanted to. Sadly, the only thing I have in the passenger seat [00:09:00] right now is well, some expensive camera equipment, and that is about it. So I'm kind of on my own out here, as I'm trying to get this car to slide around and trying to get it, to do what I want to do Speaker 1: In most cars. If you want to try to force the car to slide, if you want to try to a big old drift going on the ice, there's a lot of different things that you can do the most common and famous way of course is to give a yank on the hand break. But no, that's not really gonna work right here because I don't have a hand break. If you're driving a front wheel drive car, you can actually kind of replicate that [00:09:30] by just hitting the brakes with your left foot while you're still on the gas, because you've got power going to the front wheels, you tap the brakes, it's gonna lock just some rear wheels and that'll kick things out. But of course I have an all wheel drive model Y here. So that's not gonna work for me either. And if you've got a real wheel drive car, well, you can just put your foot to the floor. Speaker 1: And that usually does a pretty good job of getting the rear out as well. But again, all wheel drive model, Y can't do that here. So the other alternative that can do would be something like a scan in flick. We actually turn the wrong way and then [00:10:00] the right way to try to shift the car into a slide. And Nope, that won't work either. Because again, as soon as the car detects, some wheels spin and some sliding, and I've got the wheel turned over more than it thinks I should. It just cuts the power. So when I tell, I'm gonna try a little bit more speed. One more time with the scan AIAN flag. See if I can make this work a little to the right land then to the left. And no, we just go slide and wide, no power, no [00:10:30] luck. Well, that's okay. Again, this is really what the stability control system is on. This is really more of a test. What this thing can do. How much is the system getting freaked out by the fact that it's got so little grit? And again, I think the system's doing actually a really good job. This isn't really a proprietary thing to Tesla. There are certainly a lot of cars on the road that have advanced ability control systems like this, but it's proof positive that with the right tires, the model, Y we'll keep you in. Speaker 1: [00:11:00] So since you can't get a big old drift on really the game now becomes me trying to work within their constraints allowed by the stability control. That means small inputs to the steering, keeping the speed to a moderate level. So I'm not sliding too much. I do that just to add a little bit of, throtle not a lot of throtle light on the brake, on the gas and starting to have a little bit more fun with it. It'll let the tail come out a little bit before, uh, it rains in all the power, but that's what I was talking about before. That's why I usually disable the systems because now I have to second guess [00:11:30] everything that I do. I know what I want to do to get the car, to do what I want to do, but now I just think, well, what, well, let's build a control system. Let me get away with, to do what I want to do. Let's just adding another layer to the fun. So if you wanna make some big lurid drifts out here on the ice, you'll probably one opt for the performance package, but even with the long range version, it was a lot of fun driving around here, but more importantly, it really showed just how good the active safety systems are in the Tesla, even on extremely low conditions, assuming that you have the right tires.