Driving a Tesla in the North - A fair evaluation!
It has been two years now since we got a white Tesla Model 3 and I always get asked by people how it performs.
I thought I would give a quick overview so that I don’t have to repeat myself.
Let’s start with the positive. Driving this car in summer is pure fun. The instant acceleration and top speeds not only feel great but also give a better margin of safety as you are able to overtake other vehicles much quicker on the Alaska Highway. As someone who works in IT, being familiar with touchscreens and the UI, I like the clean look and don’t miss physical buttons and switches for controlling the various services.
Another plus is the Autopilot. Although I feel like Full Self Driving is further away than what Elon Musk and Tesla wants you to think it already works great (in summer) for the Alaska Highway as there is only one, almost straight street with little signs and turn offs. You can lean back and let the car take over the driving.
People seam to assume that electric cars are always better for the environment but I don’t think that’s true. There are a lot of factors going into the equation. One of them is the energy mix that you use to charge them. Another one the amount of kilometers you drive it. Since the grid in the Yukon is 100 percent renewable (thanks to Hydro) and the car is driven for at least 300km every week I am confident in this case it will be greener than an ICE vehicle after its life expectancy.
I will stop here as you can find hundreds of websites praising those Teslas and focus more on the things you usually don’t hear.
The problems you have to deal with when you want to drive this car in a Yukon winter (-45 degrees Celsius) are numerous.
Issue 1: The range in cold temperature.
It really depends on the temperature and how fast you drive. During the summer you can make the 300+ km from Haines Junction to Whitehorse and back in one charge. In the winter that’s drastically reduced. I took the trip once when it was -40 degrees Celsius and although I had to drive slowly I was left with under 10% charge after reaching Whitehorse. To conclude, expect a 40 percent drop in range if it’s really cold out.
Issue 2: The windows coming down when opening the doors.
The windows freezing when the car is parked outside and its cold is an issue for any vehicle. The problem with the Tesla is that it uses frameless windows so they have to come down a bit in order to be able to properly open the door. There is a longer conversion here. I know about all the workarounds (warming it up, reset position, etc.) but to make a long conversation short, there has to be a better way.
On a side note: There was also a recall for pinching windows just a few weeks ago:
I also think that those windows not closing proberly leads to weird rattling noises while driving:
Issue 3: Not being able to open the door as the handles are frozen in.
Those offset Tesla door handles might be great for reducing air drag but changes in environmental temperature have caused them to be stuck more than once. Rain during the day freezing temperature at night or just warming up the car, causing snow to melt and then letting it sit for a while in the cold are enough having to use the Russian method for repairing things in order to get them unstuck. Even had to resort to boiling water once.
Issue 3.1: Not being able to open the trunk.
Same as before somehow water gets in the cracks around the trunk it just won’t open without me really having to use muscle or boiling water in some cases to force it open.
Issue 4: Snow build up inside side-view mirror.
That’s a smaller concern but would be easy to fix. The side-view mirror are offset to the inside of the casing so snow is building up there and blocking the view. Sure when you brush of the snow from the car you can also do the mirrors but i never had to on any of my other cars and why not move the mirrors back out a bit so people don’t have to deal with it.
Those temperatures are not easy for any car and I hear of similar problems in other brands (maybe not that often though!?) so take my observations with a grain of salt.
To sum it all up, I still think the Tesla Model 3 is a great car and NOT really expensive in comparison with all the trucks they drive around here. There are also great incentives from the Yukon Government and charging your electric car is free up here. Businesses would definitely benefit from an all electric fleet. Given that Tesla is new to the world of car manufacturing they deserve some time to work out all those smaller quirks. I still have my Cypertruck preorder, hopefully those issues will be solved by the time it gets delivered.