Tesla Model S beats 28 cars for winter range test crown

The Norwegian Motor.no media outlet in collaboration with the Norwegian Automobile Federation carried out its annual winter test with a bunch of EVs, including some exotic Chinese cars that are available for purchase in the country. They usually do one winter and one summer test each year, aiming to evaluate real life performance of some popular vehicles. After all we all know WLTP ranges are optimistic, but the question is how much they differ from actual mileage.

This year, the LR trim of the Model S broke the Model 3 LR Dual Motor's record from 2021 covering 530km. For comparison, the Model 3 got to 521 km. That's despite the fact that the Model S was at a slight disadvantage compared to most cars in the test as the vehicle wasn't able to charge over 98%

As one would expect, the Norwegian is pretty harsh so testing all those vehicles in this environment makes sense. Motor.no reported that the average testing temperatures were between -5°C and -10°C. A very small part of the route even saw temperatures drop to -19°C. Here's the route that the crew uses each year for its winter testing.

From Oslo, around Rondane National park and back

On average, cars seem to lose anything between 20% and 30% of their WLTP range in these conditions with some notable exceptions. The Tesla Model S being one of those with just 16.40% deviation as well as the Maxus Euniq6, which actually only lost 10.45%. The MG Marvel R and the MG 5 also fairly close to their WLTP numbers at 16% and 17%, respectively.

At the other end of the spectrum the Mercedes EQE 300 had a rough time, with 33.39% drop from its advertised range. However it's not all bad news as the EQE was still able to go beyond 400km. The Chinese Hongqi E-HS9's range also dropped more than 34%.

Once again the runt of the litter was the Toyota bZ4X in its two-wheel drive version as it lost 35.79% of its range. Notably, the company didn't want to provide the 4WD version as that vehicle underperformed in pretty much all range and consumption tests so far, so the company will apply some much-needed updates before delivering it for another test. The same goes for the Subaru Solterra, which is identical down to the badges.

Recently we saw similar readings from the Chinese winter test, where the bZ4X again come short of expectations.

The list also includes 12 Chinese-made cars, some of which are soon to be released in Europe - JAC e-JS4, Voyah Free, BYD Atto, BYD Han and the Nio ET7.

Source (in Norwegian)