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Ok. So you never felt like you were losing control or you were just being cautious and driving slower than normal.I live just outside of Denver with a RWD LR. We had a pretty good blizzard a couple of weeks ago which was my first really good test. I was blown away by how good it was in the snow. It was at least as good as our previous Infiniti G37x (awd) if not better. The traction control in the 3 is excellent. I always get good snow tires so it's roughly apples to apples with tires. I'm sure the AWD 3 is even better but I have no regrets.
thank you for your answerI drove mine through a whiteout blizzard thru Kansas on i70 at night with 3 inches of snow on the road, I took it slow and it was fine. There were SUVs spinning out all over, too. Definitely won't be as good as dual motor, but I have no regrets from getting a rwd.
Edit- I did not have snow tires or chains
Kind of the opposite in a way. I actually like driving in the snow. I think it's fun to slide around a little bit... as long as I'm not endangering anyone else. I don't go too crazy but I'm not timid by any means. One of the first things I do when I start driving in snow is to floor it, slam on the brakes, and turn the wheel a bit to see what the limits are. Then I can adjust my driving accordingly from there.Ok. So you never felt like you were losing control or you were just being cautious and driving slower than normal.
I’m buying a Tesla for sure. Just hesitating on RWD or AWD. I live in Montreal Canada. Our winters can be rough. I’d like to get comments from people who have a RWD and share his experience on the ability of the car during winter.
Why are you hesitating on AWD?
Having driven every combo of ICE drivetrain in snow with all weather tires, snow tires, and even summer tires on awd(unexpected snow day). Some rwd’s will be better than others. And you certainly can get by with rwd in snow country...they always did before awd was even a thing. But No matter what car...If snow is a priority AWD will ALWAYS be superior and more confidence inspiring. It typically comes at a price though. RWD is more often considered the better handling/sportier car with less understeer than the awd. Some cars offer sports suspensions that aren’t avail on awd variants. AWD is also less efficient.
With the model 3. The sportier version only comes in awd and With track mode even increasing the rwd bias. Maybe others can chime. Is the regular awd more rwd biased too?
In any event I think even the non-performance model 3 doesn’t lose much to the rwd in handling...and actually has more power and is faster. Which leads to one concern....:Efficiency. The awd has less range than rwd. Is range more important to you than having a faster and better snow capable car? We circle back to my original question lol.
The dual motor is really great in rain and on most loose surfaces. But for snow and ice, it’s very much below average from what’s expected out of AWD. It drives like a good RWD vehicle until you get wheel slip, or the vehicle slides. And in some situations with the crummy stock tires, this means the car can sometimes slide a whole lot before the power is cut and the front helps out. This is no problem if you anticipate a RWD car, but it’s being sold as AWD. Commonly AWD vehicles are primary FWD, which is what people expect and it tends to be easier to control. Model 3 is literally 100% RWD until you get deep into the throttle, or the rear wheels slip. In situations where the available traction changes mid corner, this can mean the back of the car slides out even under very light throttle at slow speeds. And with regen, snapping off the throttle can sometimes make the problem worse. Letting off the throttle can cause the car to slide out a bit, or at least squirm around. This isn’t a very popular opinion for whatever reason, but the dual motor Model 3 is currently very much below average for snow driving for the average consumer that’s used to common FWD or FWD biased AWD systems. Snow tires help quite a lot and are highly recommended in areas where you get moderate snow. I’d say snow tires made more of a difference on Model 3 than any vehicle I’ve driven yet. Although it was starting from a low bar.
The issue is not RWD, the issue is that most cars including Tesla's have essentially open differentials. What that means is that when one of the wheels looses traction, all of the power is diverted to that wheel. You can imagine how often this could cause you grief in various slippery conditions. From a stop you could be stuck with spinning wheels. Modern cars try to overcome the open differential by individually braking wheels that have less traction in an effort to divert the power to the wheel with more traction. The Dual motor still behaves like an open differential on both axles, but you have a much lower chance of getting stuck since you have two axles and all you need is either to have traction to get moving.
Model 3 Dual motor - basically has the same traction as the RWD cars i had with a limited slip differential.
Here's a good video with various tire(s) having traction compared to an Audi Quattro. The last ones show only one tire with any grip.