winter is coming
we may get a stark one if global warming has anything to do with it which means plenty of
snow that's going to affect our range and unlike our combustion engine buddies we
can't just go to essos to fill up a gas when we want in this video i'll be looking at my top 10
tips and tricks for driving your tesla model 3 in winter i'll keep it brief so it doesn't drag on
winter hammers your range and efficiency of your tesla model 3 and the cars dynamics handle
a little bit differently in the snow and ice thanks to the lack of gears and regen braking
this video looks at the top 10 tips for driving your tesla model 3 in winter
so you don't get stranded in the snow and ice so let's crack on with number 10.
so it's inevitable even if you heat your Tesla model 3 in a garage the moisture is going to
build up at some point it might be that you've been at work all day and then you drive home
with frost on your car put your model 3 in the garage and then that moisture is going
to melt but not completely evaporate because your garage isn't that warm then you drive to work the
next day that moisture then freezes and freezes whatever it's around in that shut position which
would apply to these bad boys the wing mirrors so top tip number one is make sure you disable the
auto fold feature so that your wing mirrors are always out so if they do freeze they're
frozen in the out position which is going to save putting extra pressure on resistance on the motors
and hopefully keep them working for a lot longer if you park a model 3 outside and it
looks like snow it might be just worth putting your windscreen wipers in the service position
which flicks them up the windscreen just a little bit and that way you'll be able to clean the snow
easier off your car and make sure your windscreen wipers are working perfectly when you're set off
talking of cleaning the snow off that's my next top tip tesla went out of their way to make your
model 3 as aerodynamic as possible they shaved the door handles off they gave you spaced aged
aero wheels so if you leave loads of snow on your car first of all you're
changing the shape which is going to affect the aerodynamics secondly adding a lot of weight
so make sure you clear the snow off the boot and the front because don't forget
there's not an engine in an ev so it's not naturally going to melt which means
it could just fly up in your face as you're driving along and there's another reason why
you want to definitely clear off the boot if i demo with my snow simulation device here
as we open the boot up you can see the snow is gonna oh no just drop down and then it slides down
and straight into the boot because the tesla model 3's boot lip is actually remarkably small so you
can see there's not much difference there between the window and where the boot starts so you can
end up with a lot of snow in your boot if you're not careful and don't clean it off that might
be a really common problem with saloons but i've never owned one it's just something i've thought
of so if that's normal for saloons don't panic but if you've never owned one before bear that in mind
in winter make the most of your tesla model 3's built-in fridge but you didn't
find that in the manual did you i'm of course talking about the frunk because it's perfect
it's completely exposed to all the elements there's no cabin heat goes in there and you
get all the wind chill on your front of your model 3. i keep cans of coke in there all the
time to keep them nice and chill when i'm out and about and i just fancy a cold drink
driving down to devon's suit i'm going to put some beers in there so i can crack open some nice cold
brew skis after a five hour drive if you go to the supermarket you can put your refrigerator
stuff in there or your freezer stuff even if you hit any roadkill it's going to keep that
nice and fresh bodies they're going to keep nice and cold in there as well only joking obviously
can't fit body in there they do have to go in the back so just wrap them tight so that
they don't smell at all but the frunk is perfect for keeping something nice and cold in winter
moving on to energy usage now in winter and we need to talk about regen braking because there's
two factors when you're using regen braking in winter you need to consider first of all the
little dashed line on the screen means that your car is not going to accept as much charge as regen
braking is going to create and therefore your car won't slow down as quickly as you're used to
so if you're used to one foot driving where you just take your foot the accelerator and your car
slows to stop chances are you're gonna have to use your brake a little bit more often the second
point to consider about regen braking and this is not from personal experience but i have read
around the subject is the fact you might want to reduce it in winter that's because as i've
already said it's like putting the brakes on on your car and if you hit a bit of icy road or snowy
conditions you want full control over the braking of your model 3. regen doesn't allow you to do
that so you might want to go into the settings and just change the regen to low as opposed to full
so that you've got complete control over slowing down your model 3. i'm sure tesla will have
built in an abs version for regen braking but just in case they haven't you need to bear in
mind if you've got icy conditions when the snow properly comes down i'm going to take my tesla
model 3 out for a spin in it just to see how well the rear wheel driving handles the snow
considering i've just told you to turn off regen braking the rest aren't really going to make much
sense because the rest are all focused on saving energy saving energy and saving energy the tesla
model 3's range is hammered in winter because you have the heating on which is very power hungry and
then the rolling resistance is increased because of wind slush snow and rain i've already said
about clearing the snow off your car to improve the aerodynamics and if you still have them
maybe consider putting on your aero wheels again just to eke out that little bit of extra range
the heater is the worst way to heat the passenger compartment it uses so much energy so if you can
use the heated seats for individual passengers in your car and don't forget to high pressures
make a difference on the range so make sure they're at the correct setting before yourself
and it might make the ride a little bit more uncomfortable but it'll get you range a lot
further you might want to put your model 3 in chill mode i know it's perfectly named to winter
but that just tones down the performance a little bit so it'll take a little bit longer to
accelerate which you might want considering winter is going to be a lot slippier conditions anyway
if you don't want to sacrifice the heater and put a jumper on then my next top winter
tip is about driving around with your battery as fully charged as you feel comfortable with
now i'm not saying 100 here just maybe a little bit higher than you normally would
the aaa found that if you were driving an ev round in minus five conditions with the heater on
your range dropped by 41 and even if you didn't have the heater on the range drop by 12
just due to the adverse conditions so if you're used to setting your maximum charge say 60 you
might want to change that to 80 in winter because then that gives you that little bit of extra
buffer and compensates for the increased energy use just bear in mind you probably still don't
want to charge it to 100 because that's not great for the longevity of the battery the other thing
to consider is you might sometimes get a little blue snowflake appear on your display and that
just means that the battery is too cold to get the full capacity out of it once your battery warms up
you'll get full access to all the cells again but initially that will be a little bit lower
this leads on nicely from the previous one but the other one is keep your model 3 plugged in
all the time that way you know it's going to be set to your maximum charge all the time which is
really good but the other huge benefit is you can pre-heat your car before you get into it
and that way it draws the energy from the charger and the house or wherever
you're charging it from rather than it is the model 3's battery
if i'm using a public charger i will literally set my heating on to full seats and all before
i get back to the car it feels like an oven when you open it to be fair but my plan is
that all that heat is going to be stored in the fabric and the seats and all that interior so
it'll keep my model 3 warmer for longer when i'm driving along and rely less on the heating system
leading on nicely from keeping it plugged in all the time is about using departure mode
now you don't ideally want to keep a battery charge to 100 but if you do have to you want to
keep it there for the least amount of time as possible departure mode allows you to do that
because if you set a time that you're leaving say seven o'clock and you've set your limit on your
battery charge to 100 the model 3 will work out what time it needs to start charging to
meet that 100 deadline the other huge bonus of that is not only does it not keep your battery
100 for longer than it needs to be but your battery will be warm when you set off which
means your regen braking will likely be higher which means your efficiency usage will be better
worst case to know you get trapped in the snow because your tesla model 3 is rear wheel drive
what are you gonna do in the past you might have used your gears to get out of that situation
well thankfully tesla thought of that by putting a slip start option within your controls
it's designed to get you out of sand mud and snow thankfully
i'm intrigued to see how well it works because i'm yet to use it but i've been told that
actually evs are better in the snow because of the instant talk to the wheels give them better
control to get out of sticky situations fingers crossed we don't need to find out this winter
as you remember at the start of the video i said about protecting ourselves and others so my final
tip is about adding a safety pack somewhere in your tesla model 3 so that if the worst case
scenario happens and you get stranded in the snow you'll have some basic supplies to keep you going
you've got loads of storage space in the model 3 so you might want to keep it in the front or in
the boot there's that massive hidden compartment under the first layer that you might want to use
i keep in there blankets coats walkers mars bar cans of coke whatever you want to keep yourself
comfortable because don't forget if you do get stuck in the snow the battery is only going to
last for so long whereas a combustion engine can kind of keep you warm and keep you running
overnight the battery probably isn't going to last you all night even if you keep the
air conditioning on quite low so be prepared for those eventualities where you might get stranded
and you won't have access to the bare necessities so there you have it the key message then keep
your battery topped up drive as efficiently as you can and have a backup plan if all else fails
remember you've got lots of storage so it's not going to be the end of the world if you do have
to keep some extra supplies in there now you watch it go be one of the mildest winters on record and
all of that will be completely irrelevant i mean take today it's meant to be winter it
looks like i'm filming in the middle of summer next week's video is in honor of halloween so
i'll be testing autopilot in the dark just to see how it handles itself on dark road environments
because i have noticed it keeps missing the odd thing like a traffic light or a junction
if you don't want to miss that hit subscribe down the bottom right hand corner and if you
like my proactive approach to giving you winter driving tips in october can you hit the thumbs
up button as well that's all for now thank you for watching and i will see you again next week