If you don’t have the luxury of being able to park your Tesla Model 3 in a garage during our harsh Canadian winters, you will have many days where your Tesla will be buried under a pile of snow.
Fortunately with the convenience of the Tesla mobile app, we can simply turn on the heater and defroster without leaving the comfort or our homes, and watch as the snow and ice slowly melt away.
But just how quickly can a Tesla Model 3 defrost and melt nearly 20cm of snow, and is it any quicker than a gas car? YouTuber Aaron Jackson of Charging Chats tested his Model 3 against a Ford Fusion to find out.
After giving the Ford Fusion a slight head start by starting it up first, Jackson set a 30 minute timer to check back on the cars to see the progress. After 30 minutes both vehicles had cleared the snow off the sides and front, the areas where the least amount of snow accumulates.
After another 30 minutes (1 hour total), the Tesla started to pull ahead, with the entire hood clear of snow, and the windshield also starting to build up some bare spots. In comparison, the Fusion still had most of the snow on the hood.
In the end, both cars had about the same amount of snow left on the vehicle, so in that sense Jackson called it a tie. But he gave the Tesla the overall win due to the shape of the EV making it much easier to clear off the snow once it had melted at the base from defrosting for an hour. He also cited the ease with which you can start up the heater and adjust the temperature as a factor in giving the Model 3 the ‘W’.
As a bonus, he also tested out the traction of the Model 3 by backing out of his property without shovelling the snow. As we have come to know, Tesla’s handle exceptionally well in the snow, and the Model 3 had no problem backing out, and even starting to move again after coming to complete stops in nearly 20cm of unshovelled snow.
Check out the full video below.
