Tesla’s Cybertruck has more surprises. X user Nic Cruz Patane posted on a feature he found in the pickup’s Off-Road Baja settings called “Wade Mode.” Wait a minute — before we get into that, can we discuss how unusual (putting it mildly) it was for Tesla to leave so much out of its presentation on the most anticipated pickup of the last five years? We had to go to the web site to get specs. We had to wait until the next day for real info on accessories. A week later, the Cybertruck page doesn’t contain information on the Off-Road Modes that include two we can see in the picture in the X post — Overland and Baja. A slider lower down on the same page marked “Handling Balance” changes the distribution of some unknown quantity from front to rear. What appears to be fine-grained in-cabin operator control of some aspect of handling balance in a pickup is novel, potentially fascinating, and maybe even useful. As one commenter said in response to Patane’s post, “Why didn’t they show this at the Cybertruck event!”
This is sick. Cybertruck has a toggle for “Wade Mode” in the Off-Road Baja Settings
“Raises ride height and pressurizes battery when driving through water. “ pic.twitter.com/siTMdJ8uvC
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) December 6, 2023
Back to Wade Mode, which appears at the bottom of said page. The explanatory sentence under the selector reads, “Raises ride height and pressurizes battery when driving through water.” At the moment, nothing more is known about the mode.
Anyone who remembers Tesla CEO Elon Musk pitching the Cybertruck as a personal watercraft. In an X post from September 29, 2022, he wrote, “Cybertruck will be waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat, so it can cross rivers, lakes & even seas that aren’t too choppy.” In a second post from the same day, Musk wrote, “Needs be able to get from Starbase to South Padre Island, which requires crossing the channel.”
Starbase is in Boca Chica, Texas. The channel is the Brazos Santiago Pass, which Wikipedia says is 42 feet deep, a quarter of a mile wide between parallel jetties forming a breakwater, and 1.14 miles at its greatest point. Even though Musk said the Cybertruck will float, given no obvious air tanks or sealable voids to create buoyancy and no obvious means of propulsion once in the water, we have no idea how the 6,000-pound Cybertruck could safely and intentionally navigate a body of water 1,320 feet across and 42 feet deep. That’s not to say…
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