Tesla Cybertruck waterproof enough to 'serve briefly as a boat', says Elon Musk

Elon Musk makes electric cars, reusable rockets but he also makes headlines. Musk is regarded to be outspoken and is well known to speak his mind. Though he makes outrageous claims on social media, he has the potential to back it up, so one can never really know if he is humouring us or if he is actually going to pull it off.

Yesterday Tesla CEO and product architect, Elon Musk took to social media platform Twitter to tweet about the upcoming Tesla Cybertruck, he said, “Cybertruck will be waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat, so it can cross rivers, lakes & even seas that aren’t too choppy”.

His tweet caused a major outrage on social media and left the people divided on what he had said. There were people from all spectrums commenting on his post. Some were in utter disbelief and shock at what he had said, some were apprehensive, some came out in support, some resorted to hate and many took this as an opportunity to troll him.

Elon Musk showcased the Tesla Cybertruck concept back in 2019 at the Tesla Design Studio. It looked like a vehicle drawn by a 4 year old child. The showcased model was an electric pickup truck with all-wheel drive and self leveling suspension.

Like everything Elon Musk does this came with its share of controversy as well. At the time of unveiling the concept he claimed that the external metal sheet of the Cybertruck is bullet-resistant and that it has ‘Armor Glass’ windows which are virtually unbreakable. To demonstrate this he called on stage the vehicle designer Franz von Holzhausen, who threw a metal ball at each of the Cybertruck’s windows and they were damaged. To which he jokingly responded "the ball didn't make it through, we'll fix it in post". So his claims aren’t as reliable it seems.

According to Musk the Tesla Cybertruck’s design is inspired from Blade Runner and James Bond’s famous amphibious Lotus Esprit - Wet Nellie. Elon Musk had purchased Bond's Lotus back in 2013 for about 1 million dollars. After purchasing the car he planned to convert the car into a functional car submarine as depicted in the James Bond movie. He also said that he intends to use Tesla’s electric drivetrain for this conversion.

Musk is driven by curiosity, so his attempts to resurrect James Bond’s amphibious car and designing the Cybertruck taking inspiration from Bond's Lotus he might have traded technologies between the two to equip the Tesla Cybertruck with amphibious capabilities.

The launch of the Tesla Cybertruck has been overdue since 2021 and is expected to debut in the market next year.