GoKawiilIf you want to feel truly invincible when driving in the snow, you need a set of studded snow tires. They’re illegal in some places, typically restricted to the frigid months of the year in others. Spring for a set, though, and they’ll see you through the worst, slipperiest, snowiest driving conditions you can imagine.
They come at a pretty substantial cost, though, and I’m not just talking about a financial one. Yes, quality tires with embedded tungsten tips are generally far pricier than your average bargain rubber with snowflakes on the sidewall. The bigger issue, though, is that they can be extremely loud and are substantially worse for the roads and even your lungs than regular rubber.
Nokian, the Finnish company that’s been making high-grip, Nordic-spec tires since the 1930s, has a novel solution that’s straight from a James Bond movie — or two movies, as it were. The company’s new Hakkapeliitta 01 tires feature studs that retract when not needed. Can they reduce the other studded snow tire headaches enough to make them worth the investment? Sadly my Aston is in the shop, so I put a set on my Subaru, a 2004 Impreza WRX STI, to find out.
Finnish Origins
Chances are you’re more familiar with a certain other, similar-sounding Finnish company: Nokia. That’s no coincidence. Both were born from the same business, Nokia Corporation, which has roots going back to the late 19th century.
Nokian, the tire company, has been making its Hakkapeliitta line of snow tires for 90 years now. The most recent was called the Hakkapeliitta 10, released in 2021, but now the Hakkapeliitta 01 resets the numbering scheme.
It makes sense because, while Hakkas have seen gradual improvements from one generation to the next, this latest marks a major shift. I can say that confidently because I’ve been personally running and racing Nokian tires for well over a decade, since the Hakkapeliitta 7, doing my best to ignore the snide comments from friends and family about how incredibly loud they are.
If you’ve never driven on studded snow tires, at lower speeds the sound is a little bit like popcorn kernels exploding in your fenders as you roll around through the parking lots. It’s loud and unpleasant, settling into a more subtle roar at highway speeds, but never going away.
For its electric-minded Hakkapeliitta EV tires, Nokian mitigated this with some success by putting a foam insulating liner inside the tire and reducing the number of studs. For the Hakkapeliitta 01, though, it’s a completely different ball game.
Image: Tim Stevens / The Verge
... continue reading