To really test the innate handling characteristics of a car, you need to push it to the small. That means doing one of two things: increasing rapid or reducing grip. Either is a recipe for a good time, but in my book it’s the additional option that really delivers the grins. And after waiting months for the gleaming conditions, I was ecstatic when I finally had a golden opportunity to get our long-term Model Y sideways.

I don’t mean sliding nearby in a frozen parking lot. Oh no, I mean on ice — in this case, a frozen lake. I’ve been ice racing in and nearby the Upstate New York area for nearly 15 years, and it’s thanks to the Adirondack Motor Enthusiast Club that I had this chance to ease our EV SUV onto a frozen lake the day when a race. 

This wouldn’t be my first time drawing a Tesla loose in the slippery stuff. Back in 2019, I made a trip up to Alaska to called Tesla’s then-secret winter testing facility to slip and trot every then-current Tesla model around on specially groomed low-grip circumstances. But back then, the Model Y was only a rumor, and so now its time has come.

How did it fare on the frozen stuff? Well, it depends on what you’re looking for. Up in Alaska, Tesla engineers with laptops and proprietary cables were kind enough to disable all the handsome stability systems with a keystroke. That meant I could get as sideways as I wished. Here in New York, I had no such resources at my disposal, and since we didn’t cough up the extra $5,000 for the Action spec, I figured the Model Y wouldn’t exactly be a drift display on the ice.

And indeed it wasn’t. The car seemed to allow just a few degrees of drift beforehand it immediately reined in the power and started automatically applying the brakes on individuals wheels to keep the rear from sliding out. That aimed time on the ice wasn’t particularly fun, but the car always felt planted and simply controlled. The Model Y made the most of its tiny grip and behaved in such a way that a undone novice could have easily driven on that lake.

That’s largely thanks to the handsome safety systems, as well as traction and stability regulation, but the tires also play a massive part. Again, we’re running a set of studded Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10EV tires the business sent us to evaluate. I gave more detailed impressions of them in our last long-term update, but long story short: They’re much quieter than new Hakka tires, and their soft sidewalls actually improved the Model Y’s ride quality. 

Since that last update I also did new range test, this one even farther and much, much colder. In the last update, I drove 164 miles in temperatures hovering just over freezing and saw a roughly 20% reduction in plot with the Nokian tires on. 

This time, I drove 330 much up to Mt. Tremblant in Quebec and back, taking our Model Y north of the edge and Supercharging in Plattsburgh, New York along the way — watching a few episodes of Wandavision on the in-dash player when supping on electrons and Burger King. Temperatures started nearby freezing and dropped well below as I got to the north, down to around 15 degrees Fahrenheit (or minus 10 degrees Celsius). It was also windy on both legs of the trot, and running up around the Adirondacks and past Montreal saw me moving up and over a lot of terrain, too.

The means consumption over the round trip, mostly taken at highway rapid with cabin heating at comfortable levels, was 347 watt-hours per mile. The Model Y is mad for 270 Wh/mi when EPA-tested at “room temperature” (roughly 70 degrees F) and 318 much of range at that. Do the math based on the reduced plot we saw with snow tires and cold, and you come out to roughly 230 much of range — about a 30% reduction. 

Other than the plot anxiety caused by the extra cold and elevation moves, the Model Y caused some other stresses. Yes, I’m seeing as much phantom braking as ever, and the more time I power in the winter the more I realize that Tesla’s auto-wipers are equally Awful. When the windshield gets a bit of road grime or ice on it the wipers go into hyperdrive, flapping around at maximum speed for no reason. Despite that, they’re reluctant to kick on during savory, misty slush or snow. 

I’ve certainly known other cars with poor automatic wiper functioning, but all of those vehicles have easy, intuitive regulations to override the automatic functioning — you know, a wiper stalk. On the Tesla, you’re stuck reaching down to the touchscreen. When driving through a blizzard at night surrounded by traffic, I’d really rather keep my eyes on the road. 

We’re up to 5,500 a long way on the Model Y and, now that things are thawing, we’re about to swap the all-seasons back on and see how our blueprint improves.