I have an AWD and am just wrapping up my second winter season on these tires, including some very intense winter driving. Overall very pleased: I haven't seen a noticeable efficiency hit in the dry (trying apples to apples drives), and they really hook up great in the snow and ice. I've got many, many years on Blizzak and Wintersport 3D tires, but on Audi, not Tesla, so it's an awkward comparison. Curious to hear from anyone else who's run these tires and a different winter tire on the Model 3, and has any comments on the difference.
Considering your experience with Wintersport tires, which are performance winter tires (I've used the SP Wintersport M3 on a WRX), I am surprised you would compromise your dry days with R3s. I always considered them to be overkill for most snow conditions. I have used: Dunlop SP Wintersport M3 (WRX 5MT) Michelin Pilot Alpin PA3 (WRX 5MT) Michelin X-ICE Xi3 (WRX STI 6MT and Model 3) Pirelli P Zero Winter (Model Y)
That is a good list of reference tires. Have you tried the Hakkapeliitta yet? I do only run these tires in the winter, of course. I’ll be looking for a good (foam-free!) summer tire in the near future. Having come from Audi as a first time Tesla owner, I wanted to err on the side of aggressive traction, and I was sold on the low rolling resistance advertisement. I do somewhat often need a pretty reliable snow tire:
yea, truly not an awkward comparison if your talking about an Audi sedan or wagon with Quattro. quattro a4-a6 vs AWD Model 3 is a very good comparison. I had and 13 S6 and ill tell ya....my current M3P is kicking its ass right now. but in sunny south florida.
What I meant is that since I changed both the car and the tire, it’s difficult to know how much to attribute the handling characteristics of the setup to the tires versus the car itself. Ideally, I’d have either gone from Audi+Blizzak to Tesla+Blizzak (compare vehicle AWD) or Tesla+Blizzak to Tesla+Hakkapeliitta (compare tires).
It was a Torsen Quattro b7 A4 Avant. My AWD 3 is quite good in the snow, but I still hope we eventually get a “snow mode” feature where we can force full-time 50/50 torque distribution - at the expense of Wh/mi, of course - for driving on slippery surfaces. I think this can be done in the Performance.
Well, it's not a simple answer. I think the Tesla AWD has much better traction control, but it has to engage more often. The old Quattro I had was Torsen based, which is the mechanical full-time AWD that was configured on that car to distribute torque 50/50. This is a bad setup for fuel efficiency and performance driving (due to understeer bias), which is why Audi finally ditched it a few years ago for a part-time electronic AWD system. So a recent Audi would be a much better comparison to a Tesla. That said, the FT 50/50 distribution is IMO the gold standard for snow and ice driving. I believe that the AWD Tesla has the potential to be the best system out there, if I was only able to force the system into 50/50 (or similar) for snow driving. IINM, the Performance cars can do it. The advantage of that arrangement is that I don't have to wait for the car to react to a loss of traction by engaging the front. This is what I occasionally notice in my non-P AWD: the rear will start to just slip or kick a little bit and then the front starts to pull and straighten everything out. I've actually found I can kludge around this a little bit by being more liberal on the accelerator to prematurely engage the front when powering out of an ice covered parking lot, for example. Again, if we could be tossed a small bone here by just getting an on/off or "snow" button which just does the 50/50 until disabled, we'd be gold. IMO this wouldn't cannibalize the flexibility offered in the Performance models.