I don't understand what "wade mode" does?
If there's an air intake, it's just for cooling, not combustion. So like what is the point of "moving it to a snorkel position" or whatever?
this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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IIRC it pressurizes the battery compartment so that water can't get in and probably some other crap too
If I had a nickel every time a Cybertruck driver re-enacted the end of The Perfect Storm while casting themselves as George Clooney, I would have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Comedy gold.
😂 Some of the time, the jokes are hard to shoehorn into the articles. This time? The jokes practically wrote themselves
I'd say weird except it was advertised as a hybrid boat (and would have been advertised as a rocket or plane too if he'd thought of it) so like, doing what you are told it can do is not stop weird.
According to Fox 4, the driver is being held in Grapevine Jail as of Tuesday afternoon, with violations including:
Having no valid boat registration.
That is both hilarious and stupid. You would have to imagine the definition of a boat would be something that floats, which the Cybertruck clearly isn't in this photo. It's also less water than the truck is rated in the owner's manual to be able to handle.
Well, THAT'S comedy gold for me! laughs out loud
And, well, some laws are kinda stupid. After hearing a few of other examples it doesn't surprise me that you could end up in jail because of this kind of a law.
This got me thinking, you're right, how can it be a boat if it can't float?
Turns out, everything is bigger in Texas, including the legal definition of what constitutes a boat.
Is it motorized, above 14 feet in length, and afloat, docked, or stored on Texas waters? Then it's a boat that needs to be registered, fam.
I've read that, and I don't think any reasonable person would consider a vehicle being driven on a lake bed to be a vessel.
No, but its owner was storing it in a lake, it’s over 14’ long, and has a (non-functional) motor.
This would mean every vehicle used to launch a boat would be considered a boat in it's own right. As well as the trailer.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to store my truck or trailer in the lake?
Neither did this guy, at least not intentionally.
It seems like a vehicle being driven in a body of water is considered a vessel, and that's just absurd.
A submersible is a vessel.
It's also not submerged, not entirely.
Submarines dont have to be underwater to still be submersibles.
Sailors are big fans of the boat floating when they want to get on and off the thing. The alternatives are...not so great.
Even submersibles float, just underwater.
The whole thing is absurd.
Submersibles always float, even when above the water line. They retain their state as submarines regardless of where and whence they float.
Even in dry dock, where they "float" in the air due to steel beams, they are still submarines.
Change it to "no valid submarine registration"
Wade Mode is a feature in the Tesla Cybertruck that allows it to drive through shallow water by raising the suspension and pressurizing the battery to protect it from water and debris. It is designed for use in bodies of water up to approximately 32 inches deep at slow speeds of 1-3 mph.
Should have called it creek mode.
32 inches
That's 81cm. Up to! That means, you need to stay below that. Since no natural body of water has completely even ground this effectively means if deeper than knee-deep you risk your battery exploding.
Something I'm sure any normal truck could handle without an extra mode.
I mean EVs are better of course, but why make a truck that is too low and probably has the battery at the bottom like normal Teslas do... Why, oh why, Elon. Choke on your stupid business decisions and unsold bad quality products.
Normal trucks can wade water as high as their air intake, which usually is above one of the front wheels, inside the fender. You can go a bit above that for short distances if you keep a good momentum and create a wave in front of you, but that's risky.
Of course modern trucks, having turned from work to luxury vehicles, may have issues.
air intake, which usually is above one of the front wheels, inside the fender.
That sounds wrong. Even on my normal car it's at the top of the whole engine compartment, thus slightly higher than inside the fender, and less likely to get water sprayed.
Wading is specifically for shallow water. I think it's aptly named.
Blocked storm water drain puddle mode?
The funny thing is he would have been arrested even if it succeeded.
N = 1 Seems pretty inconclusive to me. Let’s throw in a couple more and see what happens.
I can’t decide… should we call this the “Boston Tea Party 2: electric Boogaloo” or “the Boston Tesla Party”?
They should all experience this fate, fucking pieces of shit.
fucking pieces of shit.
And their trucks, too!
Well, "trucks". heh
In point of fact… they’re not fucking. It’s why they’re so angry all the time.
And because they're so angry all the time, nobody wants to fuck them.
I'll say it before, I'll say it again: it's their drivers as much as the trucks themselves.
I grew up in DFW. I'm absolutely unsurprised that's where this happened.
Science!
What a I really want to happen, is for the day he is released from jail, for the warden, or whomever, to ask in a very condesending tone:
"Now....what did you learn?"
And if he can't answer, he stays in jail.
To be fair, this was less than the wading depth advertised in the owner's manual.
The owner had reason to believe the vehicle could do what he was trying to do.
Not even close, really. The top edge of the bumper/front edge of the hood is roughly 4 feet off the ground, for reference.
You’ll notice in the photos the front driver side corner is *close to under water. Wade mode is specified for 3”. Also the truck might be floating a bit.
*edit, I ran the video. It’s not quite under. Still deeper than the 32” depth. That said they probably smashed the under carriage romping over the rocks like it was a EOHV racing truck or something. (Dumbasses believed the incel marketing.)