The Lightning is amazing in the snow

[Adventureboy]

So do we need to add any sand bags in the bed of the lightning for snow or sheet ice?

No. The Lightning has a massive battery hanging on the bottom that balances the weight evenly across the truck. Sandbags would pale in comparison. The ICE trucks have really light rear ends, hence why folks used sandbags - especially in RWD models. Our Lightnings are balanced, heavy AWD with 4-wheel traction control. It is several levels up.

It doesn't matter what you are driving if you hit black ice. Zero traction is zero traction.

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[bc1]

Wow. What a bummer. It was a nice blue pickup.

 

[Aminorjourney]

Wow. What a bummer. It was a nice blue pickup.

Not going to hijack the thread - but I was lucky - it was nearly 2 years ago, and my replacement 2023 is just as awesome (even though it's missing some features)

 

[chl]

"If the snow was not to deep, I'd take the front-wheel drive Prius - it does really well most of the time.
If the snow was deep, I used to use my 2001 Ranger with several bags of sand in the bed over the wheels - even so still a slip and slide ride sometimes."

Couldn't make the quote work.

My Prius did good in deep snow if I didn't stop.
So do we need to add any sand bags in the bed of the lightning for snow or sheet ice?

It is plenty heavy and has all-wheel drive as well, so no sand bags needed....unless you want to help some stranded ICE pickup on your trip?

I did use the Prius in deep snow a few time, the only issue was the car sits low to the ground so the front end became a sort of snow plow...also a lot of frozen slushy ice build up in the wheel wells which required a pick-ax to get out (an exaggeration, but not by much).

 

[Robert1380]

We got our first real snow storm and I decided to go play in the snow with my Lightning. Check it out if you are interested.

Great video. Did you leave the settings in normal mode or did you set to off-road or lock the rear differential?

 

[jobofly79]

Great video. Did you leave the settings in normal mode or did you set to off-road or lock the rear differential?

I stayed in normal mode and did not engage the rear locker. I wanted to see how it handled without help.

 

[MaintGrl]

It is amazing in the snow. I watched it earlier (Hi! Yes, We watch)

It's less good in the ice under fresh snow on a gravel trail at 20 mph... I still find it amazing that I managed to run into a power line, pull the power line on top of the truck and walk away...

Ya, unknowingly you were testing the limits, were glad you were safe after that///

 

[bc1]

Just had a chance to look at the entire video. Here is the tire being used. Toyo Open Country A/T III. Fairly aggressive tread. On another note, if my wife was home and saw the video she would be making some phone calls about the dog in the front seat. She wouldn't be too happy.

 

[Bushwood CC]

Anyone know if older than 2025 models will get slippery mode as a choice at some point?

 

[MidAtlanticLightningClub]

Just wondering what tires the op is using and what pressure? With my new Flash with the Goodyear Wrangler tires and just hitting freezing temps this last week, I got low tire pressure warnings of 31 to 33 psi which is a long ways from 42. I aired them up to 42 which is what is recommended on the pillar but now wonder if the dealer purposely lowered them to make it ride a little smoother. Which also begs the question that maybe I should lower the pressure for better traction in the snow such as 35 or 36 just to keep it above the low tire pressure warning. Any opinions here on that?

Had you checked the tire pressure before that?

It can make sense to drip air pressure for off-roading in really deep snow. Keep your tires up at the recommended pressure for snowy roads.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Anyone know if older than 2025 models will get slippery mode as a choice at some point?

Nothing has been said or promised about this, I have a laundry list of feature improvements that could be brought to my 2022, so far haven't seen them.

 

[Robert1380]

I stayed in normal mode and did not engage the rear locker. I wanted to see how it handled without help.

Apparently (and I just leaned this from another post) my 2025 has a “slippery mode” which I thought was on all of the Lightnings. Hopefully they’ll do a software upgrade down the road so everyone has it. I’d just assumed you had it and used it but it’s good to know your truck did great without that feature.

 

[chl]

In our area (the VA-DC-MD area) there is a lot of coming and going due to administration changes, military transfers, etc. so we get a lot of drivers it seems who haven't driven in snow before "novice snow driver." They are the biggest problem around here, but not the only one.

In 2022 there was a huge snow-related traffic jam on I-95 in Northern Virginia - ICE cars ran out of gas it lasted so long - grid lock for multiple days! The cause: heavy snow and freezing conditions but insufficient road treatment, leading to multiple accidents including several jack-knifed tractor trailers.

An anti-EV OpEd writer for the Washington Post (Charles Lane) opined about some (possibly fictious) Tesla driver stuck int he mess telling a trucker he was afraid he'd run out of juice with nowhere to charge and his kids would freeze to death, yada yada yada...actually, EV drivers fared far better than ICE drivers running their engines to keep warm.

That article garnered a lot of rebuttals and fact checks:

Then an actual Tesla driver who was caught in that very same massive 16-hour traffic jam on I-95 weighed in. "I'm grateful that I was driving my EV when I got stuck on I-95," wrote Model 3 driver Dan Kanninen on the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA) website. He spent 14 hours in his base Model 3, the shortest-range version of that car. He stayed warm (with no engine running, obviously) and was able to stream videos on the car's 15-inch display.

Kanninen had 50 miles of range left after 14 hours. EV drivers often charge at home, he wrote, so "we are less likely to have just a partial charge, unlike drivers who rarely drive on a full tank." En route to a Supercharger station, he saw long lines of cars waiting to fuel up.



https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38883045/electric-cars-snow-cold-fact-check/

 

[Granger Ford]

We got our first real snow storm and I decided to go play in the snow with my Lightning. Check it out if you are interested.

Always nice to see what all the Lightning can do!

 

[bc1]

Had you checked the tire pressure before that?

It can make sense to drip air pressure for off-roading in really deep snow. Keep your tires up at the recommended pressure for snowy roads.

No, I stupidly figured the dealer would be delivering it with everything up to snuff so no reason to check the tires in the two months I've had it. Got it on Sep 30 the last day of the tax rebate.

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