this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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That's part of the story (though, why did Tesla ship a luxury truck with such trash tires?). Weight is a actually good thing in light snow. If you have low traction, you can actually add weight to the truck bed to get better traction. Folks in my neck the woods put sandbags and stuff in their beds to do exactly that.
Keep your eyes on what the tires are doing in the video. See how they're rolling at all the wrong times, and then locking up at all the wrong times? That's an electronic system failing, that's probably the Automatic Traction Control, and evidently it doesn't know what the fuck to do with snow.
You put sandbags in the bed of a truck to get more traction on the rear wheels for acceleration purposes. The sandbags in the bed are going to make your situation worse if you have to try and stop with no traction.
It's not so much adding weight as it is where that weight is distributed. Pickups are rear wheel drive and a depressing number of them are two wheel drive only. There's plenty of weight in a truck but in an empty one it's all in the wrong place: Not over the rear axle. If you could take the engine out of a pickup truck and throw it in the bed somehow while keeping the thing running you could leave its net weight exactly the same and significantly increase its drive wheel traction in slippery conditions.
Your note on the traction control system is right on the nose. In situations like this it is often beneficial to turn it off. Its goal is to prevent wheel spin, but when some amount of wheel spin is unavoidable in your bid to scrabble for progress, it's counterproductive. I have no idea if it can actually be sufficiently disabled in a Cybertruck, though, and I don't care to bother to find out.
A rear wheel drive truck is actually the best for all truck situations other than when empty in harsh conditions. Work truck will frequently be towing something, and towing heavy loads works better with rear wheel drive than front wheel drive. Same with a bed full of heavy stuff. When it starts moving forward the weight shifts back, improving traction. Letting off the gas and having the engine brake is better with the rear wheels as well, only the brakes need to be heavier in the front.
The engine weight being in the front is actually a benefit when moving large loads in the bed or trailer, as it balances against the load shifting towards the back, improving steering. Not to mention a straight drive shaft from the engine can take more stress than front wheel CV joints under load.
Yeah, AWD should be better overall for trucks that don't stick to main roads. But construction and other work doesn't go offroading often and 2wd trucks do fine for that purpose 99% of the time.
All of this is true, with one glaring detail: 99% of owners of these trucks drive around with the bed empty all the time anyway, or at most with some groceries or something in the back.
Those people bought the wrong vehicle.
It's a cybertruck. That much is given.
They're not "trash" tires, they're just not snow tires.
That's a common misconception. No, it is not.
Another common misconception. You don't put sandbags to increase weight, you put them in to redistribute the weight over the drive axle. Ideally you would relocate the engine into the bed, but that obviously comes with it's own problems. CT is actually an advantage in this regard since the vast majority of the weight is low and central.
No it is not.
It cannot do anything with tires that are not intended for snow.
You're also starting fights over on another thread of mine so... I guess this scratches some itch for you!
Boss, you do you. Call me if you need a tow.
Sorry, who are you? If you consider correcting disinformation as "starting fights" then sure, I have a penchant for that. I wont need a tow because I don't drive a CT (or any truck for that matter) and it doesn't snow here, but I appreciate the offer.