Elon Musk Tweets That Cybertruck Will Have A Feature That VW Beetles Had Over 80 Years Ago

Cyber Vw Float
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Who’s excited about the Tesla Cybertruck? Plenty of people, that’s who! Think over a million people who plonked down real, human money to reserve a chance to eventually buy one of the huge, angular, low-poly electric trucks whenever they eventually come out. Plenty of excited people who, were they to corner you at a party, would talk to you nonstop about how incredible the Cybertruck will be until you start sobbing and screaming uncontrollably, begging them to shut up, please, just for a moment, until you puncture your eardrums with those little cocktail toothpicks that look like little pirate swords. There’s a lot of hope that the Cybertruck will make an appearance at tomorrow’s Tesla AI day, and perhaps in anticipation of that, Elon tweeted about how the Cybertruck can “serve briefly as a boat.” You know, the same way that original Volkswagen Beetles could, decades and decades ago.

Here’s the tweet:

So, Elon is saying that the likely 5,000 to 6,000-pound Cybertruck will be waterproof and buoyant enough to float, “briefly,” making it able to “cross rivers, lakes & even seas that aren’t too choppy,” though good luck to you finding a not-too-choppy sea that you can cross, you know, “briefly.” Brief crossings of seas aren’t generally a thing, though there is a car designed in 1938 that has managed to pull off all of the things Elon listed there:

Yes, the humble VW Beetle. That clip up there is from a somewhat modified Beetle known as the Sea-Bug that once attempted to go from Australia to Tazmania, but stock Beetles could perform similar aquatic feats – albeit, as Elon says, briefly – with no modifications at all, something VW even proudly showed in this 1972 commercial:

Other Beetles have made their way across the Straits of Messina, and Sports Illustrated tested the Beetle’s seaworthiness back in 1963 and found that, yeah, it’ll float, for about half an hour.

Vw Messina

So, maybe Elon is right about the Cybertruck, and it’ll be able to float for a little while, just like the 20+ million of those cheap little funny-looking cars did decades ago. I hope it does, because I’m all for amphibious vehicles anywhere, any time. Besides, I bet when it’s in the water, a Cybertruck will be harder to see, and I don’t see any downsides there, either.

So, future potential Cybertruck owners, whenever that may happen: enjoy your brief, non-choppy crossings of the seas!

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60 thoughts on “Elon Musk Tweets That Cybertruck Will Have A Feature That VW Beetles Had Over 80 Years Ago”

  1. Before reading the article, I thought that this maybe had something to do with the schwimmwagen. That thing was awesome. I remember reading about it in a book about the history of the Beetle when I was a kid. I loved the propeller that flipped up/down and was driven by a PTO coming off the motor. So cool.

  3. As someone who used to live there, I feel the need to say there’s no “z” in Tasmania. Also it would be more accurate to say “mainland Australia” to Tasmania since Tasmania is an Australian state. Pedantry out of the way, that Sea Bug is wild. Crossing the Bass Strait is no joke since winds have so much fetch there and then get funneled through the strait, you can get wild currents and winds. Since winds predominantly come from the west and the next land (that breaks up the wind) west of the Bass Strait is Argentina there’s lots of room for winds to get really crazy.

  4. As a kid I remember watching some WWII movie where they find a prototype beetle and somehow or another it ends up bobbing around in the moat of a castle. Between it being color and the film quality I’d guess it was made in the mid 60s. Does anyone know what I’m talking about or am I misremembering a couple different things?

    Anyway I’m not sure throwing lithium car batteries in the ocean is safe or legal. Probably is fun though.

      1. That’s the one, thanks. I don’t recall anything other than the floating VW and my father confirming that they really do that so I can’t make a recommendation.

  5. I like that they’re aiming for great water sealing but they really shouldnt be promoting such a feature.
    There are already far too many needless deaths from attempting to cross flooded roads.We dont need to encourage more of it!
    You think i’m worrying too much? Well,no actually.
    In my state the politicians got so sick of f*cktards killing themselves(and their kids), they decided to ban water crossing outright.Yep, that means you cant even legally cross 4 inches of still water. It’s madness!!

    1. If anyone writes a biography of Musk; “Why would you say this out loud?” would make a great title.
      His PR people must have palpitations every time he tweets.

  7. Jesus Christ. Does anyone outside of the Tesla Cult actually believe a word that this shitbird says anymore? I just rode home from the airport in a Tesla, and based on the very questionable quality of that 3 week old Model 3, I have SERIOUS doubts that Tesla is capable of making anything watertight enough to survive a carwash, let alone crossing rivers and lakes.

    1. Not sure a floating car defies the law of physics. Multiton boats float over oceans. Also the amphicar floats. However the feasibility of a floating car with a decent performance to be economically feasible is the question.

    1. Ehh, no. The build quality of the Beetle was quite high. Teslas, not so much… Poor Nikola, good thing he’s not alive to see his name so damn execrably co-opted.

  16. Damn. I was wishing you would tell us they were going to power the windshield washers with the fully autonomous self inflating spare tire.

    *Probably modelled after the self inflating Musk himself.

  20. And my seat MAY become a flotation device. Don’t count on it. One day some poor soul will drown in a maybe Cybertruck and their family will sue because Mr. Tesla said it will float.

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