Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

FUD from Norway

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.

Johan

Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
Feb 9, 2012
7,510
10,025
Drammen, Norway
Thought this might be of some interest to Tesla enthusiats everywhere. FUD is a global tactic as the following shows:

In Norway there is an organization very similar to AAA in the US called NAF. It has over 500.000 members which is rougly 10% of the Norwegian population. (AAA has 54 million members which is 17% of the US population). They publish a magazine called "Motor". Their testing of cars and tires normally gets a lot of press coverage.

In the last issue the following article was publish, written by a very experienced motor journalist named Rune Korsvoll:

NAF.jpg


My translation:

Nervous in winter conditions

It takes a good driver to tame the Tesla Model S on winter roads. The car is rear wheel drive, has 421 horse powers and a crazy torque that enganges with full power if you so much as breathe on the gas pedal.

When Motor [the magazine] earlier this year brought the Tesla S out in real winter conditions, at the end of last winter, we had some real drifts and a few shouts. The drive was done on the slippery winter road between Trondheim and Åre [in Sweden]. Tesla S has gotten a lot of accolade for its technology and its extreme achievements. We wanted to test the electric marvel on snow and ice. To days behind the wheel can be summed up this way: Stay away from the button.

There is a lot of power and all the force from the electric motor goes straight to the rear driving wheels. The electric anti spin and anti drift system is an absolutely necessary aid to keep the car under control. But there is a butten, or rather a certain area, on the large touch-screen in the car where the anti spin system and 30 percent of the anti drift system can be disabled [traction control disabling]. It's this button you should stay away from. With the system disabled the car is dangerous on slippery winter roads.

You have to be generally careful in a Tesla S on winter roads. If you're just a tad to hard on the gas pedal sudden wheel spin and drifting will occur, which can lead to catastropic results on a regular country road. It takes an extremely experienced and careful driver to master this. Studded tires are an absolute necessity. A Tesla on winter roads has accoring to our view too much power. Electric cars are in their element on dry summer roads. With this in mind Norway should be the country with fewest number of electric cars in Europe. But one big advantage with an EV on the wintertime is the fact that you get instant heat in the cabin, even though this steals kilometeres from your range.

When Motor started the trip in Trondheim the car was nearly fully charged, showing 440 km of range. On arrival in Åre, 130 kms later, we still had 190 km on the battery. In this regard the Tesla S handles a typical Norwegian winter's day quite well.

The fact boxes below read:
Twist and shout: On icey roads there is a lot of "twist and shout" with the Tesla Model S. Motor's suggestion: Equip the car with a button for winter driving that cuts the power available in half.
Stay away from the button: The powerful Tesla Model S can handle Norwegian winter conditions thans to electronic assistive systems. If you turn these systems off, the car becomes life threathingly dangerous.

Well, well. My translations is more or less correct so the poor writing must be blamed on the "journalist". Naturally I have contacted both the journalist and his editor asking for quite a lof of answers but the article is already on print and has been regurgitated numerous times in national online media outlets.

The main FUD is of course the extensive reporting of what happens when you turn off TC (why on earth do that on winter roads???), the "fact" that it seems easy to inadvertedly turn off TC (us owners know you have to go through many levels of menues to do this, AND read a warning box and click OK) and the total abcense of reporting what really happens when you press the go pedal on a slippery surface (with TC enganged): not very much - no wheel spin at all in my experience.
 
So, let me see: 370-420cv rear wheel drive is a lot of power for snowy roads and you need to be careful not to accelerate too much too suddenly?

Ok, what else could they have stated... snow is white. Snow is cold. Ice is slippery. Traction control helps you keep control of the traction. What else...?

This article is too simplistic. They've got a few good points (like the drop in range driving in cold weather), but they have insisted too much in the "too much power" thing. Boring.
 
The Roadster has its TC button ('traction control') under the parking brake lever and its glow (Orange=ON, Red=OFF) can be seen by driver moving her head just a bit. So it is easy to verify that the orange light is ON for safety.

The MS hides this indicator in one of the screen displays so if you properly turned TC OFF in order the drive up a snowy/icy slope and then forgot to turn it back ON you might be in for a surprise later that trip. The next day I'm pretty sure the car starts up with TC ON, the default. Maybe this is the scenario the writer is obsessing about.

Yes, there have been slippery situations where TC prevented the car from moving forward, but these may have been improved by software upgrades.

Now for some fun before putting on the snows. :smile:
--
 
Last edited: