Snow is 90% about tires. Proper snow tires make a dramatic difference. I’m sure any other truck would get stuck in the same place. They have MUCH poorer weight distribution.
From another thread on this topic, I’ve learned that apparently the cybertruck uses custom tires that are the only ones that fit on the stock wheels. In other words, if you want tires that function properly in the snow you’ve got to replace the wheels themselves, too.
I mean, it’s a large American pickup truck. We all know that it’s only a matter of time before those rims are replaced with polished aluminum trashcans
If you’re getting a separate set of winter tires you’re going to need another set of wheels anyway. I mean you could have them switched to the same wheels and be rebalanced twice a year but I don’t know anyone who does that. Here everyone simply just has two sets of wheels.
Lol no, I drive a 2011 GMC Serria 2500HD in rural Michigan, USA and my truck would have no problem going up that. In fact my driveway goes up a hill that is far taller than the one shown and most of the time I don’t even have to turn on 4 wheel drive. I don’t even have snow tires as my all terrains work just fine (as a former autotech I do highly recommend snow tires though). For the weight distribution, yes, but that’s also why we throw weight in the bed over the rear axle which solves that real easy.
The problem with the cyber truck is it was designed by people who don’t use trucks for a techbro demographic who don’t need trucks.
Tesla touts that its Cybertruck is “durable and rugged enough to go anywhere” on its website, but apparently snow may be its kryptonite after numerous online videos and pictures have showed the electric vehicle getting stuck in typical wintery conditions.
An Instagram user posted a video of a Cybertruck slipping and getting stuck in about four inches of snow in an unspecified location.
“There’s literally a sedan like thirty feet ahead of it that made it all the way to a parking space,” joked podcaster and journalist Robert Evans.
And back in December, a TikTok video also showed a stuck Cybertruck being pulled up by a sports utility vehicle on a slight incline of snow and ice.
All this content showing its performance in real-world conditions doesn’t bode well for a vehicle that’s being hyped as the next big thing in the lucrative consumer truck sector.
Regardless, the news doesn’t come at a good time for Tesla’s Cybertruck, which has had to contend with range and quality control issues, in addition to numerous delays and production problems.
The original article contains 388 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 55%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I’m curious if this is a “Cyber Truck” issue or an electric vehicle / drive train issue. I mean, do the electric motors in these vehicles have “gears”?
I have a different electric truck with 21" tires, and it does fine in the snow. It even has a snow mode. The weight might make it even better than some pickups.
This is the tires or something else with the design, for sure.
If you’re starting off in slippery conditions is good to start in a higher gear so there’s less torque and you don’t exceed the lower amount of friction with the road surface.
It’s quite a bit different for electric motors because they don’t have the same power band that ICE have.
Electric motors deliver maximum torque at 0rpm.
With electric vehicles, you really just have to rely on driver skill and automatic traction control.
Gearing won’t help you.
It’s not an electric vehicle thing… Plenty of other EVs do fine in the snow. Mine even has a snow drive mode and it does pretty great on all season tires.
Technically they have gears, but not as you normally think of gears.
In my opinion, Partially it’s an electric vehicle thing (lots of torque) and partially it’s a software thing (wheel slip and torque control algorithms)
The suspension design and tire size choice could affect this as well, but not as much in my opinion as the previous points.
If you’re driving in the snow you don’t want a lot of torque starting out. When I’d drive a manual transmission I’d start off in 2nd rather than 1st for this reason.
Electric motors are famous for having maximum torque instantly, so unless it’s got an accurate wheel slip sensor it will apply too much torque and just spin.
Then there’s the problem of it being super heavy. The best car I ever drove in the snow was a Scion xA. It was so light it would float above any accumulation. My motor scooter was even better.
Tesla has excellent wheel slip controls, that is why the Plaid can accelerate like it does on the street. I am certain the issue is driver skill and tires, but mostly driver skill.
Weight is actually a good thing in the snow. Too light of a vehicle and it’s hard to get any traction without something like tracks.
The struggling in the snow is most likely an issue of tires. If someone put some all terrain or ideally snow tires, I’m sure it’d do significantly better.
Weight alone doesn’t help. It matters where the weight is. On a rear wheel drive vehicle it absolutely does help with traction and handling if you add more weight on the rear axle. People have been hauling sandbags on their truck beds/trunks in the winter for ages for a good reason.
Adding more weight only helps if you put it in the back. Takes those sandbags and slap them on the hood and you’ll just make it worse. You need them over the drive wheels.
But it can’t afford to run less efficient tires because it has too much air resistance and the range would suffer. There’s a reason why other Teslas have no flat panels or straight lines.
I don’t disagree with that at all, it’s a dumb vehicle no matter how you slice it and this debacle only furthers the proof. If it needs low rolling resistance, highway tires, then it’s just a street queen for elon fanboys.
I see Jersey schmucks up here with their pavement princess trucks getting stuck in the snow all the time. I see locals in a Corolla or fiesta or other tiny light car make it just fine in deep snow. One of my bosses at the ski mountain used to drive a mini Cooper an hour to work every day.
Weight and weight distribution are both important, but a pickup will usually perform better in snow with more weight, like 500 lbs of sand in the bed usually does the trick.
How you apply power to the road surface is also very important. Not enough weight and you will just spin tires. Break too aggressively and you lock up. Pedal to the floor and your tires are spinning. Overcorrect your turns when you start to slide and you’ll never get back straight.
My car is a little older and actually drives better in snow with the traction control off.
but they have much larger, heavier engines and drivetrains.
a ford f-150 weighs about 4,500 lbs (minimum). a dodge ram weighs about 4,750 lbs (minimum)-- these are without any outrigging which can almost double the weight.
a corolla and a mini weigh about 3,000 lbs. a ford fiesta weighs about 2,750 lbs.
those are pretty big differences (to start) which can get bigger depending on the configuration of the truck.
They are heavy but the weight distribution isn’t even and most trucks are 4x4/RWD which is what leads to the issues you’re alluding to. The rear tires can’t propel the vehicle because there’s not enough weight over them in the rear compared to the weight of the front.
Nah it’s more of a weight distribution issue. Pickup trucks in general are terrible at this. Engine, cab, transmission, basically everything is over the front axle but they are rear wheel drive.
Growing up my mom lived on one of the biggest hills in a town that was basically all hills. She remembers when it snowed they’d watch all kinds of cars and trucks get stuck trying to make it up that hill, and then watch a guy in a little VW beetle go right up the hill like it was nothing, perfectly happy will of that engine weight right over the rear drive wheels.
Years later I’m a new driver borrowing my parents’s cars, a '93 RWD ranger, and a '92 Buick century, and that comparison did a good job of driving home how much difference that weight distribution matters. The ranger had some pretty good grippy tires, but without any weight in the bed, it didn’t take much to make those wheels spin. The buick, on the other hand, handled snow beautifully, it had all the weight of that big boat-like front end over those front drive wheels, never once struggled to find traction, the only limiting factor was that it sat pretty low to the ground so it didn’t take too much snow before that front end was just trying it’s damnedest to plow through snow. If some mad scientist ever thought to lift an old Buick a few inches, I’m pretty confident that 4wd/AWD would become all but obsolete.
One of the most satisfying things for me is driving my wife’s little Mirage in the snow. With normal all season tires it does great, with proper snow tires it’s completely unstoppable - that is, until you need to stop.
It turns out that accelrating and stopping a 2,000 pound car on ice and snow is easier than it is with a 4,000 pound vehicle.
Skinnier tires are actually better in snow because they can dig down to the ground somewhat and find traction there. Wide tires tend to float on top of the snow because of the larger contract patch (but not enough to stay above it, that requires huge, under-inflated-balloon-like tires like what you’d need on an antarctic expedition)
I remember MKBHD made a comment about the snow possibly being an issue opening the doors as well. Hoping these things were actually tested in super cold conditions
Several comments about tires being the issue. I’ve driven through worse with a simple set of all-seasons - is there something special about EV tires that make them perform so poorly in these conditions?
Low rolling resistance tires tend to be not very great in snow. They get that low rolling resistance partly by not having a very sticky compound, and partly by not having a very aggressive tread pattern (among other things, I’m sure). Both of those factors are going to have an impact on traction on anything but dry pavement.
It might also be due to other design choices. I’ve got a 2015 Ford Fusion PHEV, and I had a 2013 Fusion Hybrid before that; they suck so bad in the snow with normal all-season tires that I have to keep a finger on the electric parking brake switch to make sure I can stop if there’s any snow on the ground.
I bet it has traction control which is great in wet conditions, and light snow. Get over 5" of snow and traction control is worthless if you start to get stuck.
So apparently after a quick search, I found that the truck does indeed have traction control, and it’s buried somewhere in a submenu of it’s touch screen controls. So I bet more than likely stuff like this is happening because the controls are not easily found and readily available to turn off when you need it.
Hell on my Jetta it’s on the panel by the emergency brake. Easy to find and turn off.
I’ve driven through worse in a 1980s manual pickup with bald tires. It wasn’t pretty driving, but the truck didn’t get stuck either.
Edit: Not that I’m trying to show bravado or anything. Whole state was closed down in a state of emergency and my retail boss said I had to come in, and in 'mericuh you can’t lose your job! Kudos all go to the bald tire truck. Nobody should ever try this.
All seasons with a tiny sidewall = bad news pretty much anywhere but pavement.
Although I do think Tesla needs to work on their traction control system to better mimic having locked differentials after seeing the hill climb video from a few weeks ago. This should be able to be performed via an OTA update though.
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Snow is 90% about tires. Proper snow tires make a dramatic difference. I’m sure any other truck would get stuck in the same place. They have MUCH poorer weight distribution.
From another thread on this topic, I’ve learned that apparently the cybertruck uses custom tires that are the only ones that fit on the stock wheels. In other words, if you want tires that function properly in the snow you’ve got to replace the wheels themselves, too.
I mean, it’s a large American pickup truck. We all know that it’s only a matter of time before those rims are replaced with polished aluminum trashcans
If you’re getting a separate set of winter tires you’re going to need another set of wheels anyway. I mean you could have them switched to the same wheels and be rebalanced twice a year but I don’t know anyone who does that. Here everyone simply just has two sets of wheels.
Lol no, I drive a 2011 GMC Serria 2500HD in rural Michigan, USA and my truck would have no problem going up that. In fact my driveway goes up a hill that is far taller than the one shown and most of the time I don’t even have to turn on 4 wheel drive. I don’t even have snow tires as my all terrains work just fine (as a former autotech I do highly recommend snow tires though). For the weight distribution, yes, but that’s also why we throw weight in the bed over the rear axle which solves that real easy.
The problem with the cyber truck is it was designed by people who don’t use trucks for a techbro demographic who don’t need trucks.
There’s no way you can know that.
deleted by creator
…you mean the tires? No, no it’s absolutely not. 😂
Get some good snow tire on one, maybe with a 2" suspension lift, in 4X4 mode then see how a Cybertruck handles snow
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Tesla touts that its Cybertruck is “durable and rugged enough to go anywhere” on its website, but apparently snow may be its kryptonite after numerous online videos and pictures have showed the electric vehicle getting stuck in typical wintery conditions.
An Instagram user posted a video of a Cybertruck slipping and getting stuck in about four inches of snow in an unspecified location.
“There’s literally a sedan like thirty feet ahead of it that made it all the way to a parking space,” joked podcaster and journalist Robert Evans.
And back in December, a TikTok video also showed a stuck Cybertruck being pulled up by a sports utility vehicle on a slight incline of snow and ice.
All this content showing its performance in real-world conditions doesn’t bode well for a vehicle that’s being hyped as the next big thing in the lucrative consumer truck sector.
Regardless, the news doesn’t come at a good time for Tesla’s Cybertruck, which has had to contend with range and quality control issues, in addition to numerous delays and production problems.
The original article contains 388 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 55%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I’m curious if this is a “Cyber Truck” issue or an electric vehicle / drive train issue. I mean, do the electric motors in these vehicles have “gears”?
deleted by creator
I have a different electric truck with 21" tires, and it does fine in the snow. It even has a snow mode. The weight might make it even better than some pickups.
This is the tires or something else with the design, for sure.
No, but why would „gears“ make any difference?
If you’re starting off in slippery conditions is good to start in a higher gear so there’s less torque and you don’t exceed the lower amount of friction with the road surface.
It’s quite a bit different for electric motors because they don’t have the same power band that ICE have. Electric motors deliver maximum torque at 0rpm. With electric vehicles, you really just have to rely on driver skill and automatic traction control. Gearing won’t help you.
It’s not an electric vehicle thing… Plenty of other EVs do fine in the snow. Mine even has a snow drive mode and it does pretty great on all season tires.
mostly seems like a tire issue. These things come with all seasons made for fuel efficiency, not traction.
These trucks are really heavy, being made out of metal. Google says 6600-6800lbs while a F150 is 4200-5700 lbs
No idea on the drive train, would be interesting to see though!
Technically they have gears, but not as you normally think of gears.
In my opinion, Partially it’s an electric vehicle thing (lots of torque) and partially it’s a software thing (wheel slip and torque control algorithms) The suspension design and tire size choice could affect this as well, but not as much in my opinion as the previous points.
If you’re driving in the snow you don’t want a lot of torque starting out. When I’d drive a manual transmission I’d start off in 2nd rather than 1st for this reason.
Electric motors are famous for having maximum torque instantly, so unless it’s got an accurate wheel slip sensor it will apply too much torque and just spin.
Then there’s the problem of it being super heavy. The best car I ever drove in the snow was a Scion xA. It was so light it would float above any accumulation. My motor scooter was even better.
Tesla has excellent wheel slip controls, that is why the Plaid can accelerate like it does on the street. I am certain the issue is driver skill and tires, but mostly driver skill.
I’d feel like such an asshole driving one of these things. If someone gave me one for free, I wouldn’t even want to park it in front of my house.
Sell it for some extra cash.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
There is not a single good thing about the Cybertruck.
Maybe if it didn’t weigh 3 tons…
Weight is actually a good thing in the snow. Too light of a vehicle and it’s hard to get any traction without something like tracks.
The struggling in the snow is most likely an issue of tires. If someone put some all terrain or ideally snow tires, I’m sure it’d do significantly better.
Absolutely not true. @6:30
Weight alone doesn’t help. It matters where the weight is. On a rear wheel drive vehicle it absolutely does help with traction and handling if you add more weight on the rear axle. People have been hauling sandbags on their truck beds/trunks in the winter for ages for a good reason.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
absolutely does help
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Yes that’s what I said, thank you.
Adding more weight only helps if you put it in the back. Takes those sandbags and slap them on the hood and you’ll just make it worse. You need them over the drive wheels.
But it can’t afford to run less efficient tires because it has too much air resistance and the range would suffer. There’s a reason why other Teslas have no flat panels or straight lines.
It’s a 100,000 vehicle with plastic hubcaps.
I don’t disagree with that at all, it’s a dumb vehicle no matter how you slice it and this debacle only furthers the proof. If it needs low rolling resistance, highway tires, then it’s just a street queen for elon fanboys.
Most SUVs and Trucks now are pavement princesses. I respect the hell out of people who buy minivans now.
I see Jersey schmucks up here with their pavement princess trucks getting stuck in the snow all the time. I see locals in a Corolla or fiesta or other tiny light car make it just fine in deep snow. One of my bosses at the ski mountain used to drive a mini Cooper an hour to work every day.
This is a skill issue.
skill? sometimes. the fact that those corollas and mini coopers only weigh a fraction of those huge trucks probably has something to do with it, too…
Weight and weight distribution are both important, but a pickup will usually perform better in snow with more weight, like 500 lbs of sand in the bed usually does the trick.
How you apply power to the road surface is also very important. Not enough weight and you will just spin tires. Break too aggressively and you lock up. Pedal to the floor and your tires are spinning. Overcorrect your turns when you start to slide and you’ll never get back straight.
My car is a little older and actually drives better in snow with the traction control off.
Big trucks aren’t necessarily all that heavy. The bed is entirely empty space, remember.
And increasingly a smaller and smaller portion of the overall composition of the truck.
It just means even more weight is on the front tires instead of being more evenly distributed.
I think the cybertruck is super heavy, though.
but they have much larger, heavier engines and drivetrains.
a ford f-150 weighs about 4,500 lbs (minimum). a dodge ram weighs about 4,750 lbs (minimum)-- these are without any outrigging which can almost double the weight.
a corolla and a mini weigh about 3,000 lbs. a ford fiesta weighs about 2,750 lbs.
those are pretty big differences (to start) which can get bigger depending on the configuration of the truck.
Huh… That’s interesting. My Nissan Navara (Frontier) weights 4400lbs despite being half the size of an F-150.
They are heavy but the weight distribution isn’t even and most trucks are 4x4/RWD which is what leads to the issues you’re alluding to. The rear tires can’t propel the vehicle because there’s not enough weight over them in the rear compared to the weight of the front.
Nah it’s more of a weight distribution issue. Pickup trucks in general are terrible at this. Engine, cab, transmission, basically everything is over the front axle but they are rear wheel drive.
Cybertruck doesn’t have this problem.
Growing up my mom lived on one of the biggest hills in a town that was basically all hills. She remembers when it snowed they’d watch all kinds of cars and trucks get stuck trying to make it up that hill, and then watch a guy in a little VW beetle go right up the hill like it was nothing, perfectly happy will of that engine weight right over the rear drive wheels.
Years later I’m a new driver borrowing my parents’s cars, a '93 RWD ranger, and a '92 Buick century, and that comparison did a good job of driving home how much difference that weight distribution matters. The ranger had some pretty good grippy tires, but without any weight in the bed, it didn’t take much to make those wheels spin. The buick, on the other hand, handled snow beautifully, it had all the weight of that big boat-like front end over those front drive wheels, never once struggled to find traction, the only limiting factor was that it sat pretty low to the ground so it didn’t take too much snow before that front end was just trying it’s damnedest to plow through snow. If some mad scientist ever thought to lift an old Buick a few inches, I’m pretty confident that 4wd/AWD would become all but obsolete.
One of the most satisfying things for me is driving my wife’s little Mirage in the snow. With normal all season tires it does great, with proper snow tires it’s completely unstoppable - that is, until you need to stop.
It turns out that accelrating and stopping a 2,000 pound car on ice and snow is easier than it is with a 4,000 pound vehicle.
Also snow tires make a huge difference in the snow
I used to have an old Subaru (Leone, 83).
I could get it anywhere in the snow. It was so easy to drive. It had absolute pizza cutters for tyres.
Once drove up to a ski field without chains on. Was one of only 7 cars to make it to the top (with zero issues) because there was so much snow.
Was a blast to drive.
Skinnier tires are actually better in snow because they can dig down to the ground somewhat and find traction there. Wide tires tend to float on top of the snow because of the larger contract patch (but not enough to stay above it, that requires huge, under-inflated-balloon-like tires like what you’d need on an antarctic expedition)
Shitty truck performs shittily.
Fixed their headline.
I remember MKBHD made a comment about the snow possibly being an issue opening the doors as well. Hoping these things were actually tested in super cold conditions
Tesla and tested?
That’s what “launch edition” Teslas are for.
Tesla claims they’ve tested it with 3/4 inches of ice and should work on an inch. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough either way
Several comments about tires being the issue. I’ve driven through worse with a simple set of all-seasons - is there something special about EV tires that make them perform so poorly in these conditions?
Hubris?
You drove through this same location…? On the same day…? In a comparable pickup truck?
Low rolling resistance tires tend to be not very great in snow. They get that low rolling resistance partly by not having a very sticky compound, and partly by not having a very aggressive tread pattern (among other things, I’m sure). Both of those factors are going to have an impact on traction on anything but dry pavement.
It might also be due to other design choices. I’ve got a 2015 Ford Fusion PHEV, and I had a 2013 Fusion Hybrid before that; they suck so bad in the snow with normal all-season tires that I have to keep a finger on the electric parking brake switch to make sure I can stop if there’s any snow on the ground.
I bet it has traction control which is great in wet conditions, and light snow. Get over 5" of snow and traction control is worthless if you start to get stuck.
So apparently after a quick search, I found that the truck does indeed have traction control, and it’s buried somewhere in a submenu of it’s touch screen controls. So I bet more than likely stuff like this is happening because the controls are not easily found and readily available to turn off when you need it.
Hell on my Jetta it’s on the panel by the emergency brake. Easy to find and turn off.
I’ve driven through worse in a 1980s manual pickup with bald tires. It wasn’t pretty driving, but the truck didn’t get stuck either.
Edit: Not that I’m trying to show bravado or anything. Whole state was closed down in a state of emergency and my retail boss said I had to come in, and in 'mericuh you can’t lose your job! Kudos all go to the bald tire truck. Nobody should ever try this.
Who would have guessed that an offroad vehicle designed in socal only works on bare, dry, triassic limestone.
All season tires in snow = a terrible time
All seasons with a tiny sidewall = bad news pretty much anywhere but pavement.
Although I do think Tesla needs to work on their traction control system to better mimic having locked differentials after seeing the hill climb video from a few weeks ago. This should be able to be performed via an OTA update though.
Holy shit that thing is ugly…