Hey everyone.
My name is Kimbal Musk. I'm Elon's brother and I'm on the board of Tesla Motors. I live in Boulder, CO, and I have the unique experience of being the first to use the Model S in extreme winter conditions. I am sharing my personal experience only. Do not take anything I say as communications from Tesla Motors. In this forum I can only share my experience. I hope that it is helpful.
For information, I have a black Model S with 19" silver rims. Standard winter tires (not studded). I have found the experience completely acceptable (i.e. no problem) driving in icy and snow conditions in Colorado. This includes driving in Vail in -20F temps on ice and snow. I have a lot of experience driving in Canada with a 2WD (spent four years in Ontario), so for my experience, I am satisfied (keeping my hyperbole down for the lawyers ).
Below is the log of my return trip from Vail, Colorado, to Boulder. It's 224 miles roundtrip. I did not log specific info on my way there, but will do so on my next trip.
Overall, I used 48 kwh to go to Vail, and 31 kwh to return. Temps on the way there were brutal. -20F. About as bad as it gets for the battery.
Bottomline is that with a good 110 outlet in Vail I would have been fine. Both drive out there and drive on the way back we did not attempt to sacrifice any driving convenience for range. We drove with the traffic both ways and meandered around Boulder and Vail before we left. I met the very nice and awesome owner of Mountain Haus in Vail Village. He let me borrow his 40A outlet to charge up fully while I was in Vail. I highly recommend you check out his hotel if you stay in Vail.
Here are the details of my trip:
Vail return to Boulder - Model S
Going east on I-70 from Vail Village:
13 kwh needed to cross Vail pass driving at 60 - 65 mph avg.
- regen on the way down lets you also only need 13.5 kwh to get to
Frisco. Total of 30 miles. 440 wh/mi
13.7 kwh to Silverthorne. 33.5 miles. Climb over continental divide
starts here.
21.5 kwh from Vail to get through Eisenhower tunnel to cross the pass
(no traffic, 65-70mph). 44miles from Vail. Big downhill from here.
20.3 kwh to Georgetown Exit 228. 56.5 miles from Vail.
21.1 kwh to Exit 234.
25 kwh to red rocks golden exit. We left the I-70 here to head towards
Boulder. 88 miles since Vail.
32 kwh by the time we reached Boulder. 112 Miles.
Hope this is helpful. Btw, I have heard of concerns with defogging. My experience is that there is more defogging required than my previous car. Very manageable, but it's there.
Kimbal
My name is Kimbal Musk. I'm Elon's brother and I'm on the board of Tesla Motors. I live in Boulder, CO, and I have the unique experience of being the first to use the Model S in extreme winter conditions. I am sharing my personal experience only. Do not take anything I say as communications from Tesla Motors. In this forum I can only share my experience. I hope that it is helpful.
For information, I have a black Model S with 19" silver rims. Standard winter tires (not studded). I have found the experience completely acceptable (i.e. no problem) driving in icy and snow conditions in Colorado. This includes driving in Vail in -20F temps on ice and snow. I have a lot of experience driving in Canada with a 2WD (spent four years in Ontario), so for my experience, I am satisfied (keeping my hyperbole down for the lawyers ).
Below is the log of my return trip from Vail, Colorado, to Boulder. It's 224 miles roundtrip. I did not log specific info on my way there, but will do so on my next trip.
Overall, I used 48 kwh to go to Vail, and 31 kwh to return. Temps on the way there were brutal. -20F. About as bad as it gets for the battery.
Bottomline is that with a good 110 outlet in Vail I would have been fine. Both drive out there and drive on the way back we did not attempt to sacrifice any driving convenience for range. We drove with the traffic both ways and meandered around Boulder and Vail before we left. I met the very nice and awesome owner of Mountain Haus in Vail Village. He let me borrow his 40A outlet to charge up fully while I was in Vail. I highly recommend you check out his hotel if you stay in Vail.
Here are the details of my trip:
Vail return to Boulder - Model S
Going east on I-70 from Vail Village:
13 kwh needed to cross Vail pass driving at 60 - 65 mph avg.
- regen on the way down lets you also only need 13.5 kwh to get to
Frisco. Total of 30 miles. 440 wh/mi
13.7 kwh to Silverthorne. 33.5 miles. Climb over continental divide
starts here.
21.5 kwh from Vail to get through Eisenhower tunnel to cross the pass
(no traffic, 65-70mph). 44miles from Vail. Big downhill from here.
20.3 kwh to Georgetown Exit 228. 56.5 miles from Vail.
21.1 kwh to Exit 234.
25 kwh to red rocks golden exit. We left the I-70 here to head towards
Boulder. 88 miles since Vail.
32 kwh by the time we reached Boulder. 112 Miles.
Hope this is helpful. Btw, I have heard of concerns with defogging. My experience is that there is more defogging required than my previous car. Very manageable, but it's there.
Kimbal