Interesting, he had good points about such a heavy vehicle in snow and the large amount of torque that can make for dangerous winter driving especially in a rear-wheel drive vehicle.
I had to look up what the 'cold weather spec' package is and seems to be just creature comforts not different engineering/design to increase efficiency in cold weather.
My concern is at -20C in January with a metre of snow, heater on full blast, spinning the wheels as I plow through snow and slush with aggressive studded winter tires how much will that 400km range drop? Even just warming up the interior (a common thing) in the morning and scraping off the ice off the windows before going to work in the morning. My current vehicle's mileage drops in half in the winter due to all those conditions.
Package also seems to include battery heating, probably wise as li-ion sucks in extreme cold: "The Cold Weather Package adds an upgraded heater for the battery coolant to boost range and performance in the coldest of weather, along with an "improved defrost" grille, heaters in the cowl and the windshield washer nozzles, and inside, heated seats for the second row as well."
You can do morning heating using grid power, trigger it remotely via your phone (they have an app for iphone/droid). I think you also can schedule heating ahead of time.
It would be nice if there was a torque reduction feature.
A trick for manual transmission vehicles in winter when on ice is to shift into third gear to reduce the torque so the wheel don't spin, the Tesla is the insane opposite of that.
[ Come on Elon summon your inner Canadian instincts! ]
I had to look up what the 'cold weather spec' package is and seems to be just creature comforts not different engineering/design to increase efficiency in cold weather.
My concern is at -20C in January with a metre of snow, heater on full blast, spinning the wheels as I plow through snow and slush with aggressive studded winter tires how much will that 400km range drop? Even just warming up the interior (a common thing) in the morning and scraping off the ice off the windows before going to work in the morning. My current vehicle's mileage drops in half in the winter due to all those conditions.