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00:00 We are now about 200 kilometers from Arctic Circle up here.
00:07 And this is the most known and most winter tire testing center in the whole world.
00:12 I don't really know exactly the history, but I can just imagine that the harsh conditions up here,
00:18 sometimes down to minus 45 degrees, a lot of snow, windy.
00:23 So some people have felt that they are in the hell, white hell.
00:27 And the story what I have heard is that some German journalist who has been visited the green hell,
00:32 which is the Nürburgring's Nordschleife.
00:35 When they visited here, they say that, well, if the Nürburgring is the green hell, this must be a white hell.
00:41 We wanted to go to the ice and the snow, because that's where you should be testing winter tires.
00:48 Nokian is the inventor of the winter tire.
00:51 It dates back to 1934, and they have been improving their technology ever since.
00:57 Up there on the frozen lakes, we had some Audis, and they were equipped with the latest, Hakaplita 9, studded and non-studded.
01:06 We also tried the new R2 line of winter tires.
01:11 And good news for those in North America,
01:14 just recently a new all-season tire came on sale in the US and in Canada, and that's the Z-Line.
01:22 My name is Matti Morri. I work as a technical customer service manager in Nokian Tires,
01:27 taking care of car tires, seat tires and light truck tires.
01:30 The biggest improvement that we have made in Hakaplita 9 is the stability on the bare road.
01:35 Because we have new brake package, we have a new tread design, and we also have this new excellent tread compound.
01:42 And of course that gives better stability and handling on the bare road as well.
01:46 Nowadays we use about 190 studs on car tires and SUV tires.
01:51 It variates a little bit size by size, but that's a huge amount of studs, and of course that means good and safe grip.
01:59 We have two compounds together. We have cap compound and base compound.
02:04 And on that cap compound we have totally new material inside there.
02:08 We call it green elastoproof plasticizer.
02:12 And the idea is that when we add this new material to the tread compound,
02:16 we can have better flexibility to the rubber compound in wider temperature scale.
02:21 Because we are the only tire manufacturer who uses this aramid fiber reinforcement on the sidewalls.
02:27 And of course that gives better mechanical strength to the tire against all kinds of accidents and punctures, whatever on the sidewall area.
02:35 We watched an RS6 go flying across a speed track, all equipped with these winter tires.
02:43 It truly is amazing the difference, because we also tried without the extra grip.
02:49 And what we found is that it's both lateral and the forward momentum that you could really feel a difference when we were trying to slap these cars around.
02:59 When they start to lose control, it just digs in and it just pulls you back in control and you can accelerate again.
03:07 After Whitehall, it was time for a road trip. We left Evolo and we started heading south.
03:13 We had a Volvo V40 equipped with Hakaplita 9 studded tires, and we also had an XC90 with Hakaplita R2s for SUVs.
03:24 [Music]
03:39 We are in a very special place. This is Vaasa, Finland.
03:43 And the reason that this means a lot to me is because this is where my Finnish grandmother, her signer Huotari, was born.
03:52 And she moved to Canada, to Northern Ontario, to a place called Sault Ste. Marie, and that is where I was born.
04:00 Apparently as a child I spoke Fin before I spoke English. I've unfortunately lost it.
04:05 But they are the people who taught me how to have coffee in the afternoon with Finnish coffee bread.
04:11 They're the people who taught me how to take a proper sauna, something our family has done ever since.
04:17 They gave me my first car, a U72 Chevy Impala. We of course immediately changed its name to the Impala to give it the Finnish accent.
04:26 So this is really a, this is a moment for me. I've never been to Finland and I can't wait to go back and show my mom the pictures.
04:37 [Music]
04:41 [Speaking Finnish]
04:47 [Music]
04:53 Even down here in Nokia we're meeting the people who run the plant that make these tires.
04:58 Many of them are native Finns. There is a real passion for what these guys do.
05:03 They want vehicles to have safe tires.
05:06 In fact, if they had their way, every place in the world would mandate that you have winter tires in these kinds of conditions.
05:13 Our Finatic consumers, they like our products. It goes from father to son.
05:18 Those who are in the winter sports, for example, going up to the ski resorts, they know that when they need a good winter tire or snow tire, the only alternative is Nokia.
05:31 Well, for me, brand is everything. I mean, that's the core where we are building something.
05:36 And that tells you that there is a quality you can trust. When we put our name on the tire, you can trust us.
05:44 [Music]