[Music]
So right now I'm headed to a ballistic military base in the middle of Alaska with two beautiful
Tesla Model Y's behind me. This is one of the coldest places in the United States and
it's where Tesla does most of their cold weather testing. This morning it was negative 20 degrees.
We're going to be dissecting the engineering behind these Model Y's and see what makes
them handle so well in extreme temperatures. We'll see what lasts longer in the cold: me
or the cars. This video is not sponsored. I am one of the first people outside of Tesla
to sit in the driver's seat, but in order to do that I had to come out here to the middle
of nowhere. And it has been very worth it. Let's get started.
[Intro]
[Music]
[Pouring boiling Water]
So it's hard to visually comprehend how cold it is. I've never done this before, but this
is a cup of boiling water. Let's see what happens. Back up a little bit. Ha ha! Oh my
gosh! And it just instantly turns into a giant cloud of steam. That's how cold it is right
now.
So Tesla's made this hill with an inch thick pad of ice in the center, which allows two
different surfaces for the car to travel uphill on. Two tires will be on the snowy cement,
and two tires will be on the ice patch. I'm able to walk on the cement just fine, but
the ice patch...oh man! Oh yeah. It's pretty slick!
Most cars probably wouldn't be able to handle this. Let's see what happens with the Model
Y. Coming up the hill. Full stop on the ice. Now pay close attention to these two side
tires. They are going to start to slip initially, but then the car is smart enough to know to
transfer the torque from the slipping tires into the other tires, while simultaneously
applying the breaks to the tires that are slipping. And it allows a much better control
over the torque. You could call it traction control.
So right now we're doing an off-road course. There is no asphalt underneath this snow,
it's just pure packed snow. Driving with an electric vehicle. So far we're doing pretty
good. Going 20 miles an hour. We can feel that traction control kick in. I'm going to
go up around this loop. I feel like I'm very in control of the vehicle right now, like
it does do what I want it to.
One thing that's noticeable between driving this and driving my truck is that I feel like
there's a little bit more responsiveness. Like as soon as I tell it to make the turn,
it does it. Where with my truck, when I'm driving I have to like preemptively turn because
I know it's going to take a second for the rest of the truck to register what I want
it to do. But with this one it's pretty instantaneous. I think my biggest takeaway from this is that
the instant torque, while most people think that's it's great for speed, it's even better
when it comes to like tricky situations where you need the vehicle to correct and be safe.
And in snow, that instant torque is very usefully utilized.
So behind me I have a Model Y and a Model 3. The biggest difference between the two
of course is the size. The range is roughly equal between the two – both over 300 miles.
These are the engineering cars we've been driving around for the last couple days. And
I think it's time to take a closer look at the inside and what makes them both different.
I can't feel anything.
Before we get into the big stuff, one of the subtle improvements that I really like about
the Model Y, you know, the improve each version as they make them, is the door handles. The
door handle is still the same, you know, use your thumb and prop it up. But if there's
ever a lot of ice that's covering the door, sometimes the door handles can get frozen,
and this time around you can press the door handle and break the ice on both sides so
it makes it easier to get inside. Plus the charging port is now heated on the Model Y
and ice won't form around the charging port.
So inside the Model Y, some of the biggest questions I have is about the cargo space
inside. So this particular vehicle has the 5 seats, but they do have an option for an
additional 7 seats in the back here in the cargo space. The back latch is powered and
comes up by itself and can be shut from the inside. And then this seat can fold down as
well. And when both seats are laid down, you can almost sleep back here fairly comfortably.
So I'm about 6 feet tall and I can definitely sleep in the back of my car.
With the back hatch open there is 66 cubic feet of storage inside. And if we go around
here to the front, that's where it looks most like the Model 3. And it has the same 15 inch
display, and kind of the same interior as the Model 3. There's just more room, more
space. Basically it has the same handling as the Model 3, like the quickness and the
agility, but it has more qualities of an SUV. Higher ride height, more head clearance, and
just more space for activities inside the vehicle.
The Model Y is also currently the only Tesla with this special off-road mode. But with
Tesla always doing the over-the-air updates, who knows if that feature will be passed onto
other vehicles. I assume the cyber truck will also have off-road mode, but we'll have to
wait for that review to find out.
Now as far as ride height goes, we're going to figure out exactly the difference between
the two. So measuring the ground clearance of the Model Y. Looks like we have roughly
7 inches. And the Model 3 is roughly 5 and a half. So there's an inch and a half more
ground clearance on the Model Y. And the ground clearance is important if you're going off-road
or driving in snow. Coming around to the back of the Model Y, this rectangle plate right
here pops out for a tow hitch. And along with all of those physical features, it has the
standard, you know, sensors all around the outside, the autopilot and everything else
that Tesla is known for.
[Music]
The special concoction of energy inside of a Tesla is made up of batteries. The whole
thing is electric. And as we know, batteries don't work very well in cold temperatures.
Tesla's have a special ability to heat and cool the big battery underneath their cars
to keep it at that happy temperature. We've effectively been driving around in temperatures
colder than a household freezer for two days, and as you can see the cars are doing just
fine.
[Heavy Drums]
[Car tires on snow]
When we're testing on extreme surfaces, they really mean like solid blocks of ice.
So one of the most important things to have when driving in extreme weather conditions
like this is good tires. The second most important thing is traction control. Now the benefit
that electric vehicles like this Model Y have over gas powered vehicles is that the torque
is instant. Gas powered vehicles only have one motor, while this electric Model Y has
2. And let me explain why that's a benefit. So I'm with the Tesla engineers right now
and this is one of their development vehicles which allows us to turn off the motors individually.
So for educational purposes we're going to see what happens in a rear-wheel drive car
and a front wheel drive car. The normal Model Y's have traction control enabled all the
time, but turned off the front motor, turned off traction control, and this is what happens
in a real wheel drive. When I accelerate, the rear of the car just spins out automatically
and we do a full doughnut. Which is really fun if you're trying to spin donuts intentionally,
but not when you're trying to be a safe driver. So now we have the rear motor turned off and
just the front motor engaged, and we can see what it's like driving a front wheel drive
car with no traction control. And so when I slam on the gas or acceleration, I have
no turning capabilities. The car is just moving in a straight line, which also isn't super
safe if you're on public roads.
So we can see that the car reacts differently depending on which motor is engaged, but when
we have both motors going at the same time, the computer in the car is smart enough to
carefully distribute the power between the front and the rear to keep the car stable
and going the direction you want it to the entire time. And on top of that the car is
able to break each of the wheels individually, slow it down and stop it from spinning so
you have even more control. It's a unique combination of hardware and software that
so far we've only seen in Teslas. If you're driving a gas-powered vehicle and you go pedal
to the floor, it takes a minute for it to start accelerating. But with a Tesla or an
electric vehicle, that acceleration is instantaneous. And that same heart-stopping acceleration
feature that people think is so fun, is the same feature that's keeping everyone safe
in these extreme weather conditions.
[Tires on Snow]
So this might all look like fun and games, but there's actually a ton of testing and
data points and engineering going on behind the scenes – information that they're gathering
from the car while these tests are being performed. Basically we're trying to inflict a lifetime's
worth of stress on these engineering vehicles so we know how much they can handle and how
well they can survive.
One cool thing about Tesla is they have over a million vehicles on the road right now.
And each one of those vehicles is providing different data points all the time that Tesla
can analyze and use to create a better fleet of cars in the future, or improve the cars
they have now. Over-the-air updates aren't just cute things like romance mode or video
games on the center screen, they can include range increases, performance increases, software
fixes...almost every part of the car can be controlled via software and can be adjusted
over-the-air. Obviously not every Tesla owner is going to be pushing their car and doing
donuts on ice circles like we are, but it's good to know that Tesla has engineered for
success in these extreme environments.
[Frozen Human Breathing]
So no matter how you look at it, there's a limited supply of recycled dinosaurs out there,
but an unlimited supply of solar, wind, and renewable electricity. And as we can see the
Model Y handles just fine in col weather. I'd say it passed the durability test.
If you enjoyed this video, give it a thumbs up. And hit that subscribe button if you haven't
already. Thanks a ton for watching. We'll see you around.