Them Teslas can do anything their owners want them to…
It’s always interesting to see people who know absolutely nothing about off-roading believe their crossover with all-season tires can take on some of the toughest trails around. They’re usually perplexed that the vehicle which they see in advertisements splashing through mountain creeks or that they saw in some viral video taking on Widow Maker (with heavy editing, of course) quickly leaves them stranded once they depart from highly groomed dirt roads.
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Matt’s Off Road Recovery regularly rescues such hapless souls and they’re often extremely grateful. A lot of times these people hop a plane to southern Utah, grab a rental crossover they think is an off-roader, and head out to some exotic locations in the desert they saw on Instagram. In other words, they do little planning and have little to no knowledge of the local terrain.
Of course, it helps that Matt and his crew have the right tools to get through deep snow. Their main advantage is a snow cat. Thanks to the treads, it’s able to traverse where vehicles with tires simply cannot, making recovering these people look easy.
The Tesla driver seems pretty sheepish when the crew arrives. He’s been sitting there for hours feeling the consequences of his poor choices. Also, he might be realizing his Tesla can’t be superior to every other vehicle out there. Hopefully he spreads the message to the rest of the club since that would be nice.
To his credit, Matt didn’t say much about the Tesla getting stuck – he’s a class act. Rudy, his son, did comment as it was being pulled through the snow that it “looks really heavy.” You can always count on him for the unvarnished truth.
To be fair, some guys in a Toyota FJ Cruiser went in to rescue the Tesla and they didn’t get very far before they got stuck. Also, to be fair, a stock FJ Cruiser is not a great off-roader, despite what some people try to claim. This one has at least some bolt-on mods, but I don’t really know what all they’ve done to it. Anyway, I’m really not surprised it wasn’t successful. What’s worse is the FJ Cruiser driver didn’t realize he could have used his winch and nearby trees to pull himself out, and that’s where experience comes into play when off-roading.
We all make stupid mistakes on trails but hopefully we learn from them. The main lesson here is that a heavy all-electric crossover will sink in deep snow like a rock. Also, snow that’s nice and hard in the early morning will soften as the sun comes out and the ambient temperature increases, making it more likely you will get stuck. But mainly you should remember Teslas don’t belong on trails.
