Would a D Model S make it up this hill?

I bet they all had summer tires and to answer your question, AWD, 4x4 doesn't matter without proper winter tires.
Winter Tyres or 4x4: which is best? - Auto Express - YouTube

I grew up in a rural part of MD and often had to contend with roads with a lot more snow than that, and until getting a P90D I exclusively drove RWD cars. So, with almost 50 years experience I think I can answer this. Would a D model be able to handle these road conditions? Absolutely. However, from the video, it doesn't appear they are driving on snow, but rather a combination of snow and ice, and in all cases, ice is the bigger factor. Unless you have studded snow tires, ice is going to win, no matter if a Tesla or a Chevy.

pdq said:

Unless you have studded snow tires, ice is going to win, no matter if a Tesla or a Chevy.

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Will snowmobile have a chance? This "D" on regular tires seems to have as much chance as a snowmobile.

P85D vs. snowmobile - YouTube

I don't mean that one should not use snow tires but the D may be even better than you would think.

A lot of those cars I am sure where AWD so no?, but isn't all about the tires and not the AWD?

That video has nothing to do with snow. Ice, bad drivers, and wrong tires are to blame.

pdq said:

...However, from the video, it doesn't appear they are driving on snow, but rather a combination of snow and ice, and in all cases, ice is the bigger factor. Unless you have studded snow tires, ice is going to win, no matter if a Tesla or a Chevy.

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This. Here the roads are plowed and sanded for just that reason. A little bit of sand would make that mild hill easy to drive (I drive a much steeper hill — 14% grade — in my FWD car with regular tires). Otherwise icy road driving requires studded snow tires or chains and they are rarely used on passenger cars here (chains are required for commercial vehicles when conditions are icy).

goldenbyte said:

Turn off the sound, it's on 2x speed and annoying.

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No, leave the sound on. It is hilarious. It sounds like it is narrated by South Park characters. :smile:

Best advice is don't go out driving in that weather if you can help it. No car is safe in that situation. Standing in the middle of a pack of wrecked cars filming is even less safe.

I grew up near Chicago and moved to Phoenix in my 20's. Tired of ice and snow.

I'm betting there'd a layer of ice under that snow. In which case "no", The D is unlikely to make it up safely. That said, it is not a very steep looking slope and for normal snow conditions it should be fine. I drive up much steeper snow covered roads in my 2WD S all the time.

Kills me to see people standing on road and around their wrecked cars, even after seeing unguided missiles coming down the hill backwards and dog piling 2 tons of metal per crack... stooopid. Get the heck away!

One guy got how to do it, a red half ton, gave up and backed down and got out... why? He didnt have his foot jambed on the brakes locking everything up. Funny watching people trying to steer with 4 wheels locked up.

Ahhhh...... Nature has a way of weeding out the..........

This is easy, the number of drive wheels is almost irrelevant, it's all about the tires.

D with summer or all season tires: won't make it
D with winter tires: no problem

non-D with summer or all season tires: won't make it
non-D with winter tires: no problem

AWD makes very close to zero difference in comparison to the massive difference made by proper tires. Unfortunately far too few people believe this fact no matter how many studies you show them. (note, I'm not arguing that AWD won't do better than RWD on identical tires, it's just that it's a rather small difference where proper tires are a huge difference and I'm sick of people who chose AWD "instead" of good tires, they're a hazard to themselves and others)

The culprit is ice under the thin layer of snow. I don't think any tires would grip that. Chains or studs, probably.

I bet that a D with proper tires could make it up, however, if you stopped you would slide all the way back down. I have video of me sliding down a hill with XICE XI3s on, I could easily have made it up, but I intentionally stopped in the middle. Almost immediately I started sliding down backwards, like in this video. The proper thing to do in this situation is to start the tires moving again, actually back the car down and you can retain control.

Barry said:

The culprit is ice under the thin layer of snow. I don't think any tires would grip that. Chains or studs, probably.

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Chains or studs would be better, but ice is a big part of the design target for snow tires, and as the Tirerack skating rink testing videos show, proper snow tires make a big difference in grip on ice. Enough difference for that hill? I dunno.

Rule number one. Don't f**k with ice.

CHG-ON said:

Rule number one. Don't f**k with ice.

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Yep, enough said here.

kelly said:

No, leave the sound on. It is hilarious. It sounds like it is narrated by South Park characters. :smile:

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More like an R-rated Chipmunks movie LOL.

I recognize that video. It was filmed a few years ago just 2 miles from where I live in Colorado Springs. That day, the roads were unusually slippery, and there were several multi-car pileups all over town. This in a place where ice on the roads is a relatively common occurrence, meaning that people are better than average (not necessarily great) at handling the conditions.

No, I do not believe a Tesla, even a dual-motor variety, would have done any better than many of the cars in the video. Seriously, the conditions were so bad that it was a bad idea to be driving any type of car.