-30C(-22F) this week. How is your car handling it?

[Duke-U]

I used an infrared camera to locate where this cold came from, see
Footwell Insulation

Boils down to there being a hole that blasts cold air while driving, next to the Watt-pedal....

 

[mobe]

Ok Since we are talking cold weather here, how's your feet? Because mine are freezing and I just can't seem to get the internal temp. right. The floor heater vent is so damn small! This may be my biggest complaint about my S! I blast the heat and open a window sometimes just to warm my toes

This has been a constant complaint of mine since the first cold weather that I encountered in 2015. It is much worse at speed than in town.
I have used a few setting changes to make it better.
1) set AC to off if you can get by without the Windows fogging.
2) set the right hand scroll wheel to fan speed and crank up the fan.
3) set the vents to floor only

 

[TLej]

Ok Since we are talking cold weather here, how's your feet? Because mine are freezing and I just can't seem to get the internal temp. right. The floor heater vent is so damn small! This may be my biggest complaint about my S! I blast the heat and open a window sometimes just to warm my toes

Just my experience, but I found it matters where you keep your left foot. If you leave it on the dead pedal, it seems to deflect enough air back to your right foot to keep them both warm(ish). On highway drives, I frequently move my left foot back towards the seat to change my seating position and move around a bit, and if I leave it there then I notice my right foot gets cold. My most recent drive (in -30C temps) I was wearing my running shoes that have a kind of mesh upper on them. I could feel the warm air through my shoe when I moved my feet back and forth into different positions.

As well, my personal comfort strategy is to manually control the climate. Close the two inner upper vents (need the side ones for de-fogging the side windows), set the controls to fresh air, only lower vents, and manually adjust the temp and fan as needed. I generally don't need to go warmer than 20C and a fan setting of 4 (maybe 5 when it's really cold), and the car stays comfortable including my feet. The floor setting for the vents directs most of the air to your feet, but also sends some air to the windshield and a tiny bit to the side windows. It works pretty well for keeping the windshield clear; the side windows do frost up some so every now and then I have to fiddle with the settings to get them cleared off again. When the outdoor temperature is -10C or higher, I have the temp set to 18.5C and the fan at 2 or 3 and never have any problems with the windows fogging up even with the airflow set 100% to the feet.

YMMV.

 

[sauce]

I also drive with shoes year-long, no matter what the temperature, but I also bought this fall a bunch of merino wool socks from Costco and they do the trick.

 

[Cram collision]

Maine - with a tesla cold feet and really foggy windows. Tuesday was a record cold -23F on the tesla dash.

 

[WannabeOwner]

We don't have mega-cold in UK, but I have cold feet when driving. This tends to happen afer some time into the trip - 20 minutes to and hour - when it seems that there is a sudden cooling in feet area.

However, I have also read recently that floor under feet is not as well protected as rest of floor (sorry, forgotten, perhaps battery does not extend that far forwards? maybe it was that the battery is not contributing upwards-heat at the front of the car?) I wondered if it might be worth insulating under the carpets in the front? I'm thinking of Aerogel which is very thin (relative to its insulating properties);

 

[Chopr147]

Aerogel? Huh, hadn't thought about putting something under the mat. May be worth a look, thanks.

It is much worse at speed than in town.

I have noticed this as well. Highway speeds seem to let in a draft from somewhere. Maybe insulating under the carpet will help.

 

[comanchepilot]

You should NEVER use all season tires in snow all the time. The compound gets too hard under about 28F and doesn't grip at all.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Aerogel?

Bit horrible to work with ... not cheap either ... but I don't know of anything else that has the same insulation value for such a thin profile

Aerogel - Wikipedia
About Aerogel and Aerogel Insulation - they claim "Aerogel - the most effective thermal insulator on earth"

 

[pedriscoll]

Here in Indy we have had temps from -14F to +20 over the past week. Past 3 days not out of single digits. Besides the usual diminished range I had an interesting experience yesterday. After car was outside all day, on my 25 mile drive home on the interstate, the car bounced slightly the whole way. It felt almost like driving on cobblestones. After being in the garage all night, the bouncing was gone this am, even with temp still below 0. I wonder if the tires were just too cold. I have all seasons on. In Indy we really don't get much snow, and they have done fine the past 2 winters.