Tesla Model S 19-Inch UP-05 Wheel and Winter Tire Package

The Flagship Deserves a Real Winter Set

There is a particular indignity in seeing a Model S Plaid sitting on a set of black steel wheels in a January parking lot. The car is one of the fastest production sedans ever built. For five months of the year it looks like a rental.

The reasoning behind the compromise is sound enough. Winter destroys wheels, so people run wheels they do not care about. But the Model S is a car people buy for how it looks and feels, and a third of every year is a long time to give that up.

The UP-05 19-Inch Wheel and Winter Tire Package proposes the alternative. Run a wheel you actually chose, one that is lighter than the factory piece, forged rather than cast, and strong enough that winter is not a threat to it.

Hypercar DNA on a Winter Set

The UP-05 is the product of a collaboration between Unplugged Performance and Sasha Selipanov, a designer whose work has defined the visual language of some of the most significant hypercars of the last decade. His signature appears on every wheel. The brief was a design that merges elegance with aggressive performance rather than choosing between them, and on a Model S in a squared 19×9.5 fitment it reads exactly that way.

The engineering underneath is forged 6061-T6 aluminum, from as little as 19 pounds per wheel. On a car as heavy as a Model S, reducing unsprung mass improves how well the suspension controls each wheel over uneven surfaces, and winter roads are the definition of uneven. The wheels also integrate with Tesla’s OEM center caps, lug nuts, and TPMS sensors, and were validated through track testing to confirm they hold up under the harshest conditions.

Squared Fitment Means You Can Finally Rotate

Model S wheel setups are usually staggered, wider at the rear, which looks correct on a rear-biased performance sedan but permanently locks each tire to its axle. Front tires wear one way, rears wear another, and nothing can be done about it.

This package has a squared 19×9.5 ET35 fitment, identical at all four corners, which makes front-to-rear rotation possible.

For a winter set that is a serious advantage. A Model S is heavy and delivers substantial torque through both axles, with regenerative braking loading them constantly. Winter tires use softer compounds and more heavily siped tread blocks, which wear faster under that loading than summer rubber does. Rotating spreads that wear across four tires instead of concentrating it on two, and on a set of 255-width premium winter tires, one extra season of use is a meaningful amount of money.

Nineteen Inches Is the Correct Winter Diameter for This Car

Most Model S cars, and nearly all Plaids, wear 21-inch wheels with very little sidewall. That works beautifully on smooth summer pavement and works badly on the surfaces winter produces.

Moving to 19 inches on a 255/45ZR19 winter tire adds substantial sidewall. That sidewall absorbs the impacts of frost-heaved pavement, plow ridges, and potholes that appear overnight, protecting the wheel and making the ride far more tolerable on roads that will not be repaired before spring. Overall diameter stays close enough to factory that speedometer, odometer, and range estimation remain accurate.

A narrower, taller tire also concentrates the car’s considerable weight over a smaller contact patch, which helps it press down through snow rather than skim across it. On a vehicle this heavy, that works to your benefit.

Forged, Because Winter Cracks Cast Wheels

Cast wheels are produced by pouring molten aluminum into a mold. The metal solidifies with no aligned grain structure, and when it takes a sharp impact it tends to crack rather than deform. Forged wheels are formed under enormous pressure, compressing and aligning the grain, producing a wheel that resists impact and bends before it fractures.

Winter is a season of sharp impacts, and a Model S brings more mass to every one of them than almost any other passenger car. The forged construction of the UP-05 is what keeps a hard hit from ending your season.

Tire Options for the UP-05 19-Inch Wheel and Winter Tire Package

Both tires are offered in 255/45ZR19. Every package includes four UP-05 forged wheels, four tires, four TPMS sensors, and mount and balance labor.

Michelin X-Ice Snow Wheel and Winter Tire Package

Includes:

• 4 UP-05 19×9.5 ET35 forged wheels in Gloss Black, Satin Black, Satin Bronze, or Satin Titanium
• 4 Michelin X-Ice Snow winter tires in 255/45ZR19
• 4 TPMS sensors
• Mount and balance labor

Best for: Owners facing ice, packed snow, and long stretches below freezing. The X-Ice Snow is a studless winter specialist using a full silica-based compound that stays flexible in severe cold, plus a rigid polymer inclusion in the tread for extra bite. Michelin reports ice braking distances up to 2.7 meters shorter than a leading competitor. On a car that weighs what a Model S weighs, shorter ice braking is the specification worth paying for.

Vredestein Wintrac Pro Wheel and Winter Tire Package

Includes:

• 4 UP-05 19×9.5 ET35 forged wheels in Gloss Black, Satin Black, Satin Bronze, or Satin Titanium
• 4 Vredestein Wintrac Pro winter tires in 255/45ZR19
• 4 TPMS sensors
• Mount and balance labor

Best for: Owners whose winters are cold and wet with periodic snow, and who cover long highway distances through the season. The Wintrac Pro is an ultra-high-performance winter tire rated to 300 km/h, delivering dry grip, wet braking, and high-speed stability that most winter tires cannot match while still handling snow properly. For a Model S that does real winter mileage at highway speed, that composure matters.

Pirelli P Zero Winter Staggered Wheel and Winter Tire Package

Includes:

• 4 UP-05 forged wheels, 19×9.5 ET35 front and 19×10.5 ET35 rear, in Gloss Black, Satin Black, Satin Bronze, or Satin Titanium
• 2 Pirelli P Zero Winter front tires in 255/45R19
• 2 Pirelli P Zero Winter rear tires in 285/40R19, T0 Tesla specification
• 4 TPMS sensors
• Mount and balance labor

Best for:
Owners who want the factory staggered stance without the factory cast wheel. This package matches Tesla’s own Model S 19-inch winter specification exactly: 9.5-inch front and 10.5-inch rear widths, 255/45R19 and 285/40R19, on the Pirelli P Zero Winter. It is the fitment Tesla engineers chose for a Model S in snow, built on a forged 6061-T6 wheel instead of the OEM piece, and offered in four finishes rather than one.

The P Zero Winter is Pirelli’s performance winter tire for premium and prestige vehicles, 3PMSF rated for severe snow service, and the 285/40R19 rear carries the T0 Tesla homologation. That rear width puts substantially more rubber under the axle doing the most work, which on a Plaid is the axle that will ask the most of it.

The trade is worth stating plainly. A staggered setup cannot rotate front to rear, so the rears wear faster and you will replace them sooner than a squared set. Choose this if the stance and the rear traction matter more to you than tire life. If you would rather stretch a set of winter tires across an extra season, take one of the squared packages above.

Value That Compounds

A second set of wheels stops the annual dismount and remount cycle, with its labor cost, rebalancing, and cumulative wear on tire beads and wheel bead seats. It keeps your 21-inch summer wheels out of five months of salt and brine. It lets each set of tires work only within the temperature range it was engineered for, which extends the life of both.

Then add a forged wheel that is lighter than the factory piece, a squared fitment that finally lets you rotate, four finishes to match how the car is specified, and a design signed by one of the most respected names in automotive design. That is a winter set that raises the car rather than lowering it.