Last week, Elon Musk made some rather controversial statements regarding the Tesla Cybertruck.
He said the electric pickup would be "waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat, so it can cross rivers, lakes & even seas that aren’t too choppy."
Unfortunately, Musk did not provide details on how the Cybertruck would be able to accomplish that, even though he suggested the pickup would be able "to get from Starbase to South Padre Island" on water, a distance of some 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers) according to Google Maps.
As expected, Musk's claims did not go unnoticed, with many people in the thread asking for details about how the Cybertruck will be able to "serve briefly as a boat."
While they didn't get any answers from the Tesla CEO, his tweets caught the attention of the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, which advised EV fans never to use the electric pickup truck as a boat.
The organization issued a serious warning on Twitter, noting that "our derelict vessel crews are begging you to understand that anything that 'serves briefly as a boat' should not be used as a boat."
Coming from an agency like the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, the warning should be taken seriously. The tweet was accompanied by a photo of a sedan that was most definitely not equipped to cross a body of water floating down the Sauk River in Washington State.
While the Cybertruck will most certainly have superior water fording capabilities to the sedan in the photo, it's hard to imagine how it will be able to do the things Musk is promising. Washington State Department of Natural Resources' tweet reminded some Twitter users of another outlandish claim from Tesla for another one of its upcoming products, the Roadster.
You've probably heard of the SpaceX package of cold air thrusters, which is claimed to help the electric sports car do 0-60 mph in 1.1 seconds. That's not all; according to a June 2018 tweet from Elon Musk, besides a dramatic improvement in acceleration, top speed, braking, and cornering, the approximately ten small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around the car maybe "will even allow a Tesla to fly."
So, what do you think, will we see a Tesla Cybertruck sailing before a flying Tesla Roadster or the other way round? Or is Elon Musk making these wild claims simply to create buzz for future Tesla products?
