> People are going to be putting stuff into the frunk, even stuff that may be really solid and pointy and likely to breach into the cabin in the event of a crash.
Others may have different practices, but for my wife and I we put very little there. The trunk is quite spacious. We keep a small emergency kit and an autosock[0] in the frunk but otherwise it's generally empty. On the rare occasions when we've used it on road trips the geometry has always made it most convenient to fill the frunk with winter coats and other soft goods that pack well into arbitrarily shaped spaces.
I have... a racquet in there. That's it. The hatch is insanely spacious, though I usually leave it empty because I transport my two goldens back there. But even with them in there, there's still room in the side cubbies for the mobile charging kit, and the under portion has even more room. Honestly, it's insanely great for storage.
Not yet -- I carry it because I'm required to have chains or an equivalent (the autosock counts) in the vehicle when driving into the mountains in Washington state and British Columbia during winter. Since the Tesla (P85D) is all wheel drive I'm not actually required to use the equivalent as long as I have M+S rated tires on the car.
For the past couple winters conditions have not demanded anything beyond the AWD and the tires. This is also an unfortunate commentary on the snow situation for the last couple winters.
I picked the autosock over chains as the Tesla owners manual advises against most change due to risk of damaging the wheel wells and body. There is apparently at least one model they've approved, which I'll likely invest in the first time the autosock proves itself not up the task and forces me to turn back from a ski weekend.
Tests have shown that the Autosock actually works better than chains in almost all situations. Here in Colorado you'll see big rigs carrying goods with auto sock's on rather than chains.
"Do they really check every car, one by one, to make sure they have all the required equipment? Sounds time intensive."
On I-80, heading into Donner pass as you go through lake tahoe, CHP/Caltrans does indeed check every single car as it drives through ... during dangerous driving conditions, that is.
They usually funnel the interstate down to two lanes and have two guys waving cars through, one by one. They make sure that you either have a AWD/4WD vehicle or that you have chains on. Theoretically they are checking that AWD/4WD vehicles, without chains, also have snow tires, but that isn't really happening - they can't tell that at the 8-10 mph speed you roll through at.
It may also interest you to know that there is a lively cottage industry of chain rentals and installers just prior to these checkpoints. You can pull over just before the checkpoint and for $40 someone will quickly (and properly) install chains on your car, and then for another $20 at the other end of the pass, someone will quickly take them right back off.
This is regular and organized enough that you could absolutely drive through Donner pass in a blizzard, with no preparation whatsoever (other than $60 in cash).
It may also interest you to know (it interests me) that other, higher passes, with just as much potential for snow/blizard don't have any of these checks or precautions. You can drive yourself right over vail pass (I70, Colorado) with whatever drivetrain or tires you like.
California yes, sometimes, I've been in such a tediously long line for 1/2" of snow on the road, it was absurd. Colorado, only if you're in an accident does it come up. So from one extreme to another. No idea about other states.
I would argue (from Colorado) that 1/2 inch of snow is more dangerous than even feet: you can get up to speed and lose traction completely if you don't have chains and aren't experienced with snow driving.
There are a lot of AWD/4WD cars in WA and they generally get waved through without chains. In truly bad conditions they might check everybody. Driving through the mountains in really bad conditions is time intensive.
I've used autosock on a few occasions. It's not as good as the good old chains but never had any problems. Here (in Bulgaria) during the winter we often hit -15/-20 C and the roads are rarely cleaned - they are icy and snowy for the first few days after the snowfall. My experience tells me that the better the brand of the autosock is, the more durable it is.
My Dad remembers a particularly bad winter in the UK when the pavements were iced over for weeks. He told me the postman started wearing socks over his shoes so he could walk quickly on the ice.
Running barefoot in snow and ice works surprisingly well. Mostly because when I tried I had more coordination and sensory information, I don't think because my feet had better grip.
(Feet are warm, so going over ice will be different than going over polished wooden floor.)
I haven't tested autosock but but chains with this kind of fixation tend to slip out during hard cornering / spirited driving. I saw the chains flying away two times in the mirror before giving up and switching to grandpa driving style.
> chains with this kind of fixation tend to slip out during hard cornering / spirited driving
Uh, how fast were you driving with chains? When you need chains it's a bit of an extraordinary set of circumstances that typically warrant doing significantly less than posted speed limits. I don't think I've ever seen anyone attempt to do hard cornering or anything that would be considered "spirited driving" with them on. That seems like the exact opposite of what you should do with any type of tire wrap that is meant to add traction to your vehicle.
I just wanted to go to sleep when I wrote this comment. I should have been more precise.
I was drifting up the mountain with an RWD car and when I took a corner at 15-25kph with a nice angle I heard a ratatatatak and saw the chain flying. Tried again and got the same result.
At this point I got curious and I wanted to know under what condition the chains would stay on the wheels. I did some experiments and came to the conclusion that you can do what you want with theses chains as long as you're driving more or less straight but as soon as you start cornering you better be careful or you'll see the chain flying. They hate lateral force. Will try next winter with regular chains to see how well they do.
I precise that I did that during the night and the road led to village that has at most 100 inhabitants. I didn't expect to see anyone going up or down the mountain and you can see car lights way before crossing an other car. I wasn't reckless driving
Others may have different practices, but for my wife and I we put very little there. The trunk is quite spacious. We keep a small emergency kit and an autosock[0] in the frunk but otherwise it's generally empty. On the rare occasions when we've used it on road trips the geometry has always made it most convenient to fill the frunk with winter coats and other soft goods that pack well into arbitrarily shaped spaces.
[0]: http://autosock.us/