I know that everyone likes to poke fun at Californians as lotus eaters living in paradise and completely out of touch but I thought a little geography might help give perspective.
California has about seven very different climate zones... from LA (lotus land) to the high desert, the central valley (where all of your fruits and vegetables come from) to the central and north coasts, coastal mountains and the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Tesla facilities in both north and southern CA are only a few hours drive from the Sierra with 9000 ft passes and 14,000 ft peaks. We do have snow, cold, bad weather etc. in the Sierras. The fact that Tesla recently installed a second Truckee Supercharger attests to the popularity of the mountains with Tesla people.
So, my 85D with air suspension does come in handy in the snow (currently looking at a foot of snow around the house). I have found the Tesla to be a good snow/foul weather car... probably better than most of the other cars I have had here (Audi and Subarus). My old Land Rover is better in deep snow but a meandering beast otherwise... and even it's old school halogen headlamps get coated with ice and snow.
Please feel free to keep poking fun at California (we do get a laugh out of it, also) and continue in your delusions (so that you'll stay away).
(Heard on NPR this morning that Los Angeles is the largest manufacturing region in the U.S.... that is, places that actually manufacture things... not just Hollywood dreams.)
I grew up in East LA and never encountered anything close to a lotus eater until I moved to the Northwest. California has a rep for being full of New Age types, but they moved north a long time ago. Seattle and Portland are full of them. Watch Portlandia, it exaggerates Portland, but not by all that much. I have known people very much like every character on that show.
They probably expanded the Truckee, CA SC because of all the traffic between the Bay Area and the Gigafactory.
I do agree California has many different climates. Look in the Sunset garden book, they have something like 25 gardening zones for California alone. Southern California has a number of climates as you progress from the coast to the inland desert. It's also one of the few places in the US or Canada where the Pacific Ocean to the interior doesn't have any tall mountains to go over. The only other place is the Columbia Gorge east of Portland. The Coast Range also breaks up the climate between the coast and inland. On the Central Coast Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo are only 15 miles apart, but have drastically different climates. Atacadero inland from Morro Bay about 20 miles has an even more dramatic change in climate.
When I was a kid we had a long vacation at least once a year, but only left California once. I got to see a lot of California and experience all the different climates. It is true that California gets snow. If it wasn't for the snowpack in the Sierras agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley would be impossible. And skiing is a popular winter sport among some Californians with the money to trek off to Mammoth a couple of times a year (or one of the less popular ski resorts), but the population centers in the state are essentially snow free (I know LA has gotten snow on a couple of freak occasions, but it is a couple of time a century event). There are not that many Californians who have to cope with living with snow like in many other parts of the world.
Portland and Seattle get a bit more snow than cities in California. A good snowfall is about a once a year thing here and it only last a couple of days. I've lived in the Northwest since the late 1980s and only had snow on the ground for more than a week on two occasions. Snow events are bad enough here. Seattle and Portland just shut down and wait it out. I know people from snowier regions who laugh at the snow fear here, but they tend to stay home after the first snow event too. The few people who are out are crazy and dangerous and the lack of snowplows makes getting around tough.
When you have to deal with some kind of climate condition for months on end, you think about it differently than if you just experience it as a lark once in a while. Portland and Seattle give a lot more consideration to dealing with rain water than Los Angeles does. Los Angeles averages around 15 inches of rain a year, Northwest cities are around 35-40 inches and where we are it's closer to 50 inches (we live right on the edge of the foothills to the Cascades). The summers are dry like they are in California, but we get more of the winter storms. City designers here think about dealing with rain water more than California because it's something we live with more.
A car designer living in a place that has snow on the ground for months at a time in the city is probably going to think about snow considerations on the car's design than a car designer who only sees snow when they deliberately make a trip to go into snow country. It's a different way of thinking. I remember adjusting my thinking to a world that had more rain storms come through than what I grew up with. And rain is usually a more minor weather phenomenon than snow.
Forgot to mention, the movie industry put Los Angeles on people's mental maps, but the aircraft industry is what made it the second largest city in the US. at the dawn of WW II, North American Aircraft, Northrop, Lockheed, and Douglas were all based around Los Angeles. There were some smaller aircraft industries there too like Hughes Aircraft. The Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach has also contributed to Los Angeles' wealth as well as quite a few smaller industries.
