Musk floats idea of boat mod for Cybertruck Never mind that it is years late, hampered by production problems, and still not on the actual horizon: Elon Musk wants to turn the Cybertruck into a boat. As seen in this short video clip shared on Monday, Tesla's veep of vehicle engineering Lars Moravy told former TV talk show host and car connoisseur Jay Leno that making …
Although not as serious a risk, reversing any car or truck down a slipway to launch your boat or watercraft is going to cause problems in the medium to long term anyway. That salt water gets inside places you can't hose down, assuming the drivers knows enough to even care and pretty much every launch I've seen happen that way, the car or truck invariably ends up at least part way into the water and the driver rarely if ever bothers to hose down with fresh water.
Really. You'd think with all his money he could afford something better to put in his pipe.
A fully electric vehicle in salt water. Can't think of anything that might go wrong there: Sinking of the Conception
Interesting that the initial cause of that disaster was attributed to lithium batteries, but by the time the bureaucrats completed their reports it was all human error and the batteries officially had nothing to do with it. Yes, the crew was negligent...which is why they didn't notice that the batteries had caught fire.
Don't you mean cult members?
SKUM and his ilk are the modern Snake Oil Salesmen of yesteryear. There are enough fools to buy his... sorry pay his company good money to rent a vehicle that Tesla can brick at will. You never own it free and clear.
While I own an EV, I'll never rent a Tesla unless I have it written in Musk's blood that it will never be bricked. mind you... he'll probably try to weasel out of it . nothing is ever his fault just like his boss Trumpo.
...and considering Jay Lenos obsession with cars, I can just imagine what was going on inside his head when the claim of making a cybertruck waterborne was put to him. I've seen him talking about cars and he seems to know a thing or two about them. I've not seen the show, but I wonder how he managed to keep a straight face :-)
If you took even the most cursory look at the link I posted, you would see that both cases are way better than the average, and that Autopilot is way better than meatsack drivers. Although one could argue that Autopilot is used more on highways than back roads, which in most countries is a lower-collision environment.
GJC
"accidents per driver per year" is what counts.
That and the cost and time to repair. As Tesla will not sell us (or anyone) parts then it takes ages to get your Muskmobile repaired because they are so busy. That all adds to the costs that the insurance company has to bear. If your Toyota gets pranged, you can go to almost any bodyshop and get it repaired. Saves time and lowers the costs to the car driver.
With the advent of these mega castings, more and more small crashes will result in a write off. Yes, they may save Tesla a few $$$ in production but the repairability sucks. Castings are almost impossible to repair unlike bits of sheet metal. They call that progress?
That's a complete myth.
I do pretty much all the work on my Teslas, and getting hold of parts is trivially easy. Teslas are in fact very good for repairability, with all workshop manuals, wiring diagrams, connectors lists, and parts lists freely available online direct from Tesla, so I can just get the part number, go to my favoured third party garage, and ask them to order for me. I could also order direct from Tesla, but I like to give business to smaller companies, not least because they will know if there's a good third party equivalent available for stuff like suspension or brakes.
As for repairing "bits of sheet metal", if your crush structure bends, you do not under any circumstances repair it, it *has* to be replaced. At that point, it matters not at all if it is bent steel or cast aluminium.
GJC
"Study by car loan giant LendingTree:"
Big heavy trucks have the problem of inertia and less visibility than a passenger car which may contribute to RAM owners bashing their way through life.
The drink driving and BMW pairing doesn't surprise me in the least.
Bad drivers have a tendency to choose big heavy vehicles "because they're safer" - this isn't conjecture, I've asked owners of Chelsea tractors why they have such vehicles in an urban environment and this is almost always the answer(*)
It's not helped by the USA's import-tariff ("Chicken Tax" puts a 25% import tax on vans/light trucks built outside the USA) and safety/emissions(heavy vehicles have fewer regulations on safety, MPG and emissions, so are more profitable for makers) driven love affair with light trucks/vans/suvs
(*) Traffic calming measures mostly exist to protect children walking to school from vehicles containing children being driven to school
7000lbs is 3182kg.
Class B on a UK driving license is up to 3500kg maximum authorised mass. If that 7000lbs is kerb weight then there would only be 318kg available for people and cargo before into getting to C classes. Ordinary driving licenses can include some class C's but a medical certificate may be required depending on age and issue date. Maximum authorised mass is set by the manufacturer. Driving without passengers or cargo does not move the vehicle into class B. A 318kg limit would be a bad restriction on a big expensive truck.
This is true but I don't think the cybertruck is coming to the UK or Europe as far as I've read.
US licenses are a bit more relaxed on the weight limits.
I believe it changes from state to state but 10,000 lbs (4,545 kg) seems to be quite a common limit over there. So that would give users about 1,000kg to play with.
Hopefully one of our US readers can give us a better idea of the allowed weight limits on standard licenses..
So a quick check of the cybertruck website (and apologies in advance for not using approved Reg units).
95" wide by 223.7" long = 2.4m by 5.9m, which gives a rough plan area of 14.2m2
empty weight of 3.2t displaces 3.2m3 of water (1m3 of water = 1 tonne), so it sits about 0.22m in the water (if it doesn't leak) (and ignoring tires and wheels, and any other appendages)
Payload is given as 2500lbs, so that pushes it to a draft of about 0.3m
Ground clearance is 17.5", height is 70.5", so overall height of body = 53" = 1.35m. (Not a simple cuboid shape, but sufficiently so over the lower body that would be below the waterline for a simple w*l*h calculation)
So in theory, if it doesn't leak (big if), it should be possible to make the thing float.
Of course, the shape of the vehicle looks like it would encourage a bow wave to form, flow over the cab and into the load bed, which would simultaneously drive the vehicle nose down (as the water flows over) and further into the water, and destroying any buoyancy created by the load bed.
Plus you need good seals everywhere.
And if it starts to leak, and thus to sink, you then have water pressure holding the doors shut, so getting out might be a tad tricky.
I don't think I'd take one for a swim.
When looking at measures of mass and thus weight, the numbers aren't useful as to the user. What the user needs to know is on which *category* of weight the object falls into:
1 - I could carry it all day
2 - I can lug it for a bit
3 - I can just about yoick it into the car
5 - I can just about get the bugger to shift across the floor when I shove it
6 - It's not going anywhere (without a long lever and a sufficiently immovable object to use as a fulcrum, such as a forklift truck)
7,000 lbs is so far into category 6 that it doesn't matter fo me
I'm interested to see how many cars you can find in any category except 6. There may be a few things in 5 which can be shoved, but I'd like to see a category 2 car. Oh, and was there supposed to be a 4 there? You might need a new category system when user-carried is not part of the plans, replaced by user-carrying.
When he first posted this nonsense to Xwitter at the end of September last year, the best response was from the Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources:
'Our derelict vessel crews are begging you to understand that anything that “serves briefly as a boat” should not be used as a boat.'
https://twitter.com/waDNR/status/1575541070427193350
I'm sure it could be done. I mean, humans have been making things float, then watching them sink - sometimes from the inside - for thousands of years. But WHY would you want to do this? If there were any serious need for such a vehicle, surely the major manufacturers would have been knocking them out for years?
Still, I can't fault his Muskiness for his imagination in coming up with these motions. When he gets round to imagining the helicopter version, I might be tempted:)
This is not a matter of addressing a popular use case but taking advantage of an opportunity. A normal car is a structural frame to spread support from the wheels to light bodywork. A boat is structural hull with a frame to distribute the mass of large components.
The original plan for cybertruck was structural bodywork. Back when it was just a concept the idea of making it dual use as a boat was floated because the structure more strongly resembled a boat than normal cars do. Manufacturability has twisted the original plan but the boat option has apparently survived.
Tesla has had difficulty getting doors to fit properly. The factory for cybertruck has problems with precision manufacture - partly because stainless steel is a difficult material and partly because structural bodywork is less forgiving.
Talking about a cyberboat now is just a distraction from other bad news: Mass production is easily two or three years away. (I only doubled what Musk said - feel free to add a few more years).
"Tesla has had difficulty getting doors to fit properly. The factory for cybertruck has problems with precision manufacture - partly because stainless steel is a difficult material and partly because structural bodywork is less forgiving."
I must observe that I see shonky panel gaps and lax assembly standards on almost any US designed and built car.
> "Talking about a cyberboat now is just a distraction from other bad news"
Exactly.
Not to mention that- I suspect- they also hope it's a more positive way of at least keeping it fresh in peoples' minds.
The fear being that by the time they're able to finally mass produce them to (barely) acceptable standards circa mid-2026, the Cybertruck will be a "remember that?" from several years back, yesterday's news with the only novelty remaining being "they finally got that working?" and not even rich tech bro manchildren with money to splurge on boys' toys to impress their friends with being interested any more.
But WHY would you want to do this? If there were any serious need for such a vehicle, surely the major manufacturers would have been knocking them out for years?
Easy-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67755697
A woman died in floodwaters outside Charleston, South Carolina, and three men in north-eastern states were killed as the storm moved towards Canada.
Engage Swim mode, and your Tesla will save you, albeit probably briefly but when in Swim mode the fart option blows bubbles to distract you while you sink/get electrocuted/burn/gassed. Then again, if the Swim mode included rapidly inflating external airbags to aid bouyancy, they might also work to protect pedestrians. But I approve of this idea, after all, as the article says-
Drive it into a lake and, well, it might be more of a hazard to its passengers - something sure to pique the interest of regulators.
But on the plus side, it keeps the streets safer for pedestrians. Keep death off the streets! Drive on a lake!
The biggest danger in getting swept away in flood waters is generally not so much the water, but all the crap floating in and getting tangled up in the water. Most cars will float for a surprisingly long time if the doors are kept shut, but get swept up in highly turbulent fast flowing water and unless you have a jet-boat capable of going on plane, you're going to get swept away, trapped under some logs and crushed to bits by all the debris getting rammed into you.
...but get swept up in highly turbulent fast flowing water and unless you have a jet-boat capable of going on plane, you're going to get swept away, trapped under some logs and crushed to bits by all the debris getting rammed into you.
You say that like it's a bad thing? But the Cyberduck will be bulletproof, so no floating or jogging trash will be able to smash the windows! From inside, or out! I guess as an alternative, it could come with a swim kit. So bed full of lead to make sure it's not bouyant, some ex-Soviet tank crew 'rebreathers' they were supposed to use for river crossings, and your Tesla can now just keep on trucking along the river bed.
Protecting electrics from brief water spray isn't too hard.
Protecting an electric system working at approximately 1,000v and probably carrying a similiar magnitude of current, plus a shed load of lithium from water immersion is going to be a heck of a lot harder.
Icon for what happens when you get this wrong.
"Protecting an electric system working at approximately 1,000v and probably carrying a similiar magnitude of current, plus a shed load of lithium from water immersion is going to be a heck of a lot harder."
Many EV battery packs are a complete bastard to prize open so provided there aren't any unsealed holes, it could do ok. Fresh water isn't all that conductive. If you studied your Scrapheap Challenge properly, The Nerds just left the electric flapping in the current with their diver tow submersible. Longevity could be an issue. Salt water will be a big dose of fun regardless and you just know somebody will try it.
Don't really care in fresh water. At worst you might get aquaplaning of the brushes at some speeds. In salt water you'll lose some performance but the path through the coils should still be a far lower resistance, so you'll likely still get plenty of power out. There's other reasons you might not want to submerge your motors in salt water though (corrosion, corrosion and corrosion being the main 3. Followed shortly by more corrosion)
I work on EV systems (for big boy trucks, not Elon's pet project). Our HV stuff is fully sealed, has to withstand high pressure spray, and immersion of at least 30 minutes in 1m of water (1m above the highest point on the assembly)
Also, Li-ion batteries have very little metallic lithium in them (if they're working correctly). If water gets inside, electrolysis is a bigger deal since you now have sparks, oxygen, and hydrogen in close proximity.
If he has a pile of his old kids' comics in this toilet that he jacks off to. Can't be long before he comes up with Falcon Heavy module for it as well. It doesn't matter how many whizzbangs he nails to his cybertruck... It's a dog, it looks crap and maybe the best way to sell it is to make it kiddy sized, attach pedals and emit ray gun sounds.
It reminds me of something from Mad Max or other films of that ilk. Badly fitting, welded on panels, which Tesla have a reputation for along with that whole post-apocalypse look it has. The preppers are probably drooling over it thinking they can charge it up from a couple of recycled solar panels :-)
"the Cyber Truck, which has suffered from quality control issues."
This is by now an endemic Tesla problem. Their quality control is shit. I've STILL yet to see a Tesla with all straight and even panel line (to the eye, no need to break out the micrometer like the Japanse brands do). New vehicles seem to be hit or miss. Most are fine, some spend the first year of their life in and out of Tesla service centers for various ailments/DOAs that simply shouldn't have existed in a brand new vehicle leaving the factory. Quality of internal trim is also... not great. To the level I would expect of a Dacia or a Skoda or something, not a car as expensive as a Tesla.
All of this really has me wondering whether or not it might be time to just fire the entire production and factory engineering team and start fresh. But then I remember that that Tesla has always refused to listen to industry experts and claimed it could do everything better, faster and cheaper than the companies that have been making cars for decades and cost optimized their production lines to the last hay-penny. Then it all makes sense.
Some of Tesla's engineering (specifically drivetrain and battery) is impressive. Musk is the sort that seems to forget just how important factory and production engineering is to actually get mass produced products off the line correctly and on time.
"Quality of internal trim is also... not great. To the level I would expect of a Dacia or a Skoda or something, not a car as expensive as a Tesla."
Can't speak for a Dacia, and its antecedence doesn't bode well, but I've owned a couple of Skodas for over six years each, and they have extremely good build quality inside and out.
"Musk is the sort that seems to forget just how important factory and production engineering is to actually get mass produced products off the line correctly and on time."
Considering the punishment a Falcon 9 1st stage goes through on take off, flight and landing, it make one wonder if the SpaceX engineers could teach the Tesla engineers a thing or two about machining and welding :-)
This one, supposedly, for up to 100m. Presumably, it sinks after that like any other ordinary car.
But quite apart from that, as far as I'm aware both high voltage batteries and electric motors dislike getting immersed in water.
Oh and by the way, what's the intended drive mechanism. Road wheels don't work well in water unless there's solid ground beneath to make contact with, and if that's present this sounds like just another fording-capable car (see Land Rover).
Musk is clearly a wizard at finance and self promotion, but, for all his pretensions, certainly not an engineer, just a paymaster of engineers. But barmy concepts aren't necessarily deliverable, even by good well funded engineers.
This one, supposedly, for up to 100m. Presumably, it sinks after that like any other ordinary car.
It doesn't specify horizontal or vertical. This may be due to Tesla not really knowing how well the improved door seals will hold out given variability in fit. Once that's done, we might get a better idea of it's crush depth as well.
"we might get a better idea of it's crush depth as well."
We need this checking properly. Strap Musk in, hoof the CT off a ship over the Puerto Rico trench, and then have the Navy listen for the sound of a can being crushed as the CT descends 8.6 km to the seabed. I know there's slightly deeper bits of ocean, but Puerto Rico is quite handy for travel from the US.
I don't know, Tesla was pretty good at taking something that someone else invented, making a modification to it, and getting the credit while the actual inventor who achieved it first was relegated to a "who is that". Then again, although almost all of his accomplishments were derivative rather than revolutionary, he was making them through his own knowledge and effort, so Musk still doesn't get that far.
Too much delta‑V needed – you need around 30 km/s to launch things straight into the Sun, excepting some fancy planetary flyby assists or long burns de‑orbit a few AU out there. Plus there is always the danger of Sun burping in disgust, and you don't really want any Solar burps of THAT magnitude...
Much easier to just fling it out of the Solar System altogether, although once it crashes into the first peaceful Vulcan vessel, "winning the argument" with it the Musk way, you might have an interstellar war at your hands...
Best, throw it into the Jupiter. Let's see how much crush‑proof it really is ;-)
Given the thing weighs over 3t and sort of doesn't float why surrender to the inevitable and sink it properly so you could drive it along the bottom of the lake. I take it the batteries don't need oxygen to work so if Musk stops the blighters catching fire underwater (or in car parks) and provided air for the driver and passenger the cyberduck would be good to go once he got rid of any unneeded buoyancy.
Not really new some Darwin locals drove an electric vehicle (converted Toyota Landcruiser) across the bottom of Darwin Harbour https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-30/nt-world-record-darwin-underwater-drive/102665924
As you might imagine not a lot of entertainment in the Top End - hunting, fishing, drinking (the M/F ratio is low so not a lot of opportunity for wenching.)
I suspect the whole thing is an attempt to stop people who've ordered one from cancelling their orders and thus making cashflow even more difficult. Talk up the product to keep the suckers attention. What will the next wheeze be? That, with a small modification or add-on, it can fly?
"I suspect the whole thing is an attempt to stop people who've ordered one from cancelling their orders and thus making cashflow even more difficult."
Once you place an order, you have to give Tesla a non-refundable deposit as opposed to the $100 refundable reservation fee that just holds your place in line to place an order. Reservation and Deposit gets used interchangeably a lot, but they are very different for legal reasons.
Even in thumbnail form, that composite of a Cybertruck crossing the ocean you used is so hilariously- and intentionally?- unconvincing that it couldn't have more perfectly reduced Musk's latest nonsense to the level of (man-)childish silliness it deserves to be treated as.
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