Snow performance of a RWD Model S

Waking up with snow

When we went to best last night the forecast said there would be 1 to 2cm of snowfall. Well, this morning it showed differently. It was 20 to 30cm!

At first it all looked good, the sun was shining and we wanted to go out for a hike through the mountains in the fresh snow.

More snow

The weather turned however and more and more snow came down on us. No hiking yet, so we started to play some cards.

After a few hours the father of the house owner showed up with his tractor to clear the driveway. We could go out!

Eventually we had about 30cm of snow over a period of 14 hours.

RWD in the snow

Most people (including Tesla) talk about the snow performance of the Dual Motor Model S. Mine however is a RWD 85kWh from September 2013.

With the Hankook i-cept Evo 2 (W320) tyres it however performs just fine. Sure, it sometimes slips and traction control has to kick in quite often, but overall it works just fine.

Eventually we went out hiking and to get there we had to drive through fresh snow. Not a problem at all.

Obviously the Dual-Motor is a no-brainer when you live in these conditions, but a RWD Model S probably outperforms most other RWD vehicles, if not all.

Frozen charge port

After we went hiking we drove back to the cabin. At the cabin I wanted to plug in again, but the charge port would not open. It was frozen.

It are just a few drops of water which can cause the port to freeze. The solution is simple. Take any credit card format plastic card and use it to force the port open. Simple as that!

Trondheim to the Lofoten Islands

Hurtigruten

We love driving the Model S, but after driving for over 72 hours it is also nice to be ‘driven’.

That’s why we took the Hurtigruten ferry from Trondheim to Stamsund. Stamsund is a port on the Lofoten Islands just 21km from the house we rented on the Lofoten through Airbnb.

On Tuesday we boarded the MS Nordlys at 11:00 and arrived in Stamsund the next day around 19:00.

Getting of the ship was tight. With only centimeters to spare and guiduance of the crew we were able to manouvre the Model S off the ship. Yes, it is a wide car!

‘Our’ house

After leaving the ship it took us roughly 45 minutes to drive to the house in Valberg. A beautiful house at the coast looking over the fjords. What an amazing place!

We are going to stay here for a few days to see the Aurora Borealis before we continue more North on the Lofoten.

Non-studded tyres

Just as last year I’m driving non studded tyres. Why? We have to pass through Germany and Denmark and studded tyres are not allowed there.Last year I used Nokian Hakka R2 tyres which were great! This year I’m driving Hankook i-cept Evo 2 (W320) tyres and they work very good as well. The last 500m to the house is pure ice and you notice that the tyres have a hard time keeping traction. The traction control in the Model S works exceptionally good however and it works just fine.

Keep in mind: I drive a RWD Model S from September 2013. It is not a new Dual-Motor AWD Model S!

230V network

Most of the part of Norway have a 230V instead of the 400V we have in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. This means that my UMC (Universal Mobile Connector) does not work here. This is a safety measure of the UMC.

In Norway you can recognize this by the Blue 230V label on electrical installations.

The UMC performs a check if there is 0V between Ground and Neutral, but here that’s not the case. There is 120V between GND and N which makes my UMC show a red light. It thinks there is a ground leak, which is a bad thing.

There is a special Norwegian version of the UMC, but I built my own using Smart EVSE. It does NOT perform a Ground check, but it allows me to charge.

My Model S is happily charging at 13A right now.

This means I have a new charging POI on my Model S’s screen!

Time to relax!

After being on the road for 5 days it is time to relax. Watch the Aurora, go out hiking and do nothing.

From Middelburg to Trondheim

To Hirtshals

Last Saturday we left at 08:00 from Middelburg for the 1.100km drive to Hirtshals, Denmark. From there we would take the ferry to Larvik, Norway on Sunday morning.

It took us 14 hours to reach Hirtshals. Traffic was bad, very bad starting at Hamburg towards the border. Roadworks and border controls made it stop and go over almost 100km!

A short night followed since our ferry left at 08:00.

Lier South SuperCharger

After arriving in Larvik our first SuperCharger in Norway was Lier South, 100km from Larvik.

It was busy! After we parked all 8 stalls are occupied. Other Model S had to wait in the queue.

A queue is bad, but it also shows that the infrastructure is used! It’s not a charger which is rarely used. From what I understood it was also a vacation period, so that might have caused the spike in traffic.

Lillehammer

After charging in Lier we headed to Lillehammer. We would stay the night there and charge again.

Fortum CHAdeMO

While heading to Lillehammer I stopped at a CHAdeMO from Fortum to see if I could charge there. The people from Fortum told me that I could use my Dutch phone and send a SMS to active it.

Well, that didn’t work. I borrowed a RFID tag from somebody else as a backup. On the Lofoten Islands I will need to use a Fortum charger, so I wanted to know if it worked. Lesson learned. It doesn’t.

Busy times at Lillehammer

On the E6 to Lillehammer we already spotted a lot of Model S coming from Lillehammer, so I expected the SuperCharger to be crowded.

It was! 9 of the 10 stalls we busy, so we parked at the last stall available.

As we were charging we saw more Model S arrive. We still had 100km left in the battery and we would leave the next morning. We vacated the stall and to decided to charge the next morning for the 155km drive to Dombas and Trondheim.

We checked in at the hotel and went for a dinner in Lillehammer.

SuperCharging with a cold battery

The next morning the car had been in -8C for the night. When I switched to ‘Drive’ a warning indicated that regenerative braking had been disabled. This was due to the battery being cold.

SuperCharging didn’t go very fast. When I just started it would charge with 17kW and slowly climbed to roughly 30kW before we had enough to leave for Dombas.

This was a similar experience as last year at the Krokom SuperCharger in -22C.

The picture below shows that we were charging with 24kW where under normal conditions it should have been about 80kW.

To Trondheim

From Lillehammer we drove to the Dombas SuperCharger. After a charge and lunch there we headed down to Klett (near Trondheim).

Nothing really special on this part of the trip. The temperature was about -5C and the (road) conditions were good.

To the Lofoten

Our destination is a house we rented through Airbnb on the Lofoten Islands.

From Trondheim we are taking the Hurtigruten ferry to Stamsund on the Lofoten. This will take 2 days.

From Stamsund to the house it is just 21km. Time to relax!

Energy Consumption

The tripmeter shows 1861km and a total usage of 391kWh. That’s 210Wh/km. Not bad at all!