Nokian provided flights from Austin, Texas, to Ivalo, Finland, and accommodation so Ars could visit its test facility. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.
IVALO, Finland—In 1987, fictional superspy James Bond careened around a frozen lake in an Aston Martin in the movie The Living Daylights. Bond’s tires were carrying a secret—retractable tire studs that operated with the touch of a button. After cutting a circle in the ice with a wheel to sink the bad guys, Bond deployed his outriggers for balance and his on-demand studs for an impressive getaway.
Nokian Tires played with that idea, presenting a concept in 2014 with similar functionality. However, as Nokian development manager Mikko Liukkula remembers wryly, each tire was so complex that a production set would have cost more than the vehicle itself. Fast-forward to 2026, and Nokian has debuted a giant step forward in studded-tire engineering: a studded winter tire that automatically adjusts to changes in temperature and surface pressure.
I put these new Hakkapeliitta 01 tires through the wringer in and around a frozen-over Lake Tammijärvi at Nokian’s 1,700-acre testing center. After drifting, slaloming, hard braking, and swooshing along snowy trails, I can attest to the quality of the gripping power.
Testing the studs at White Hell
Roughly 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland, the trees and ground are blanketed with bluish-white snow roughly 180 days per year. Santa lives nearby, apparently. What better place to test winter tires? That’s what Nokian Tires figured when it established its testing center in this white wonderland, hundreds of miles north of its headquarters in Nokia.
Credit: Kristin Shaw It’s not just supercars that use frozen lakes in Lapland, tire companies like testing here too. It’s not just supercars that use frozen lakes in Lapland, tire companies like testing here too. Credit: Kristin Shaw
The tire manufacturer opened this facility—called White Hell, a nod to the Nürburgring (nicknamed Green Hell) track in Germany—in 1986. At the time, a few employees from the testing department trailered dozens of Nokian tires to the outpost on a frozen lake to test them in extreme conditions. That was two years before it split from parent company Nokia. Today, it’s the site where Nokian launched its newest creation, the Hakkapeliitta 01.