Tesla's Elon Musk has made some bold claims about the electric vehicles' abilities in the water, many of which haven't exactly been taken seriously by the general public. But the company's new Cybertruck doubles down, even coming equipped with a 'Wade Mode' that purports to allow the vehicle to traverse up to 2'7" of water.
One brave owner decided to put that claim to the test. In a new video, YouTube channel TechRax walked viewers through the vehicles Wade Mode and tried it out against a variety of water depths on submerged roads.
First, there are a few things to note. Wade Mode takes up to 10 minutes to activate and lasts about 30. It's also only accessible under the vehicle's Off-Road Mode. As the warning shown in the video specifies, no damage done to Cybertrucks in this mode is covered by warranty. In other words, proceed at your own risk.
After speeding through water depths that appear to range from just over a foot to well over the front of the vehicle's hood, the truck emerges intact. It's still drivable, and doesn't appear to leak.
That being said, it wasn't exactly unscathed. As he notes at the end of the video, the water appears to have damaged the vehicle's tailgate functions. Although he is able to open and close the tailgate on his phone, the purpose-built buttons on the truck itself were rendered inoperable by the water.
Back in 2022, Elon Musk claimed that the "Cybertruck will be waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat, so it can cross rivers, lakes, and even seas that aren't too choppy," adding that he wanted the vehicles to make it "from Starbase to South Padre Island" near the SpaceX headquarters in South Texas.
While the Cybertruck's seafaring capabilities remain to be seen, it does perform pretty well in the test runs all things considered.
