Man in Texas drove his Cybertruck into a lake because Elon Musk said ‘Wade Mode’ could handle water, but now he’s in jail

A man in Grapevine, Texas drove his Tesla Cybertruck directly into Grapevine Lake on Monday night because his truck has a feature called “Wade Mode” and he wanted to see if it worked.

Fair enough. The issue is that the cybertruck became disabled, started taking on water, and the police showed up. The driver told officers he intentionally drove into the lake to test the feature and arrested him on the spot.

He’s been charged with operating a vehicle in a closed section of a park, no valid boat registration, and numerous water safety equipment violations.

He remains jailed for driving his own truck into a lake.

Cybertruck ‘Wade Mode’ Activated LOL

ALERT: Man arrested after putting his Cybertruck in ‘Wade Mode’ and accidentally sinking it in a lake in Grapevine, Texas.

Officers responded to a call about a Cybertruck sunken off of Katie's Woods Park Boat Ramp at around 8 PM.

Authorities say the driver put his Tesla in… pic.twitter.com/jQ7YXk36Xk

— E X X ➠A L E R T S (@ExxAlerts) May 19, 2026

I do think it’s important to note that Tesla said the Cybertruck could take on water. That’s WADE MODE, baby. I don’t know how anyone could drive a Cybertruck and NOT test the feature. That said, if anything, this man is a political prisoner and I will not rest until he is freed.

Tesla’s Cybertruck WADE MODE

Is Wade Mode Is the Greatest Scam in Automotive History?

Tesla has a feature on the Cybertruck called Wade Mode. You go to their website, you read about it, and your brain immediately starts imagining yourself cruising through rivers and across lakes in your electric tank truck. That’s the whole pitch and literally what the name implies.

Wade Mode. You wade through water. In your Cybertruck. Like a badass.

Then you scroll down one sentence and discover the maximum water depth the Cybertruck can handle is 32 inches.

I repeat. Thirty-two inches. Two feet and eight inches.

That’s not wading through anything. That’s driving through a deep puddle after a rainstorm. That’s navigating the Wawa parking lot after a flash flood. That’s stepping into the shallow end of a pool and pretending you went swimming. Thirty-two inches of water depth is not a feature. It’s a liability disclaimer disguised as a selling point.

Elon Musk…WTF?!

Cybertruck will be waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat, so it can cross rivers, lakes & even seas that aren’t too choppy

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 29, 2022

You’re going to name something Wade Mode, market it like the truck can operate in rivers, and then cap the depth at less than three feet? Did nobody at Tesla think about who was buying these Cybertrucks?

You’re selling $80,000 electric trucks to guys in Texas and a bunch of other rich assholes. Texas specifically, is a state where everything is bigger, including the bodies of water people are going to drive into.

How didn’t Elon know this was going to happen? You designed the marketing to make people think this was possible and then buried the 32-inch limit in the fine print like a pharmaceutical company hiding side effects at the end of a commercial.

That Elon Musk Tweet Is Ridiculous lol.

“Cybertruck will be waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat, so it can cross rivers, lakes and even seas that aren’t too choppy.”

Rivers. Lakes. Seas. Those are his words. On the internet. For millions of people to read. The man who built the truck told the world it could cross bodies of water. Some guy in Texas believed him and drove it into a lake. Now the guy is in jail and Musk is still tweeting from his phone without a care in the world.

How is the customer in jail and the manufacturer who marketed the truck as amphibious is not? If I sell you a parachute, tell you it works, tweet about how it can handle jumps from any altitude, and then you jump out of a plane and the parachute fails, who’s at fault? You for believing me? Or me for selling you a defective parachute and telling the world it could handle anything?

Put up or shut up, Elon. Either build a truck that can actually cross a lake or stop tweeting about it. Don’t market Wade Mode like your truck is a Navy SEAL assault vehicle and then cap the depth at 32 inches. That’s false advertising with a cool name.

The Arrest Charges Are Comedy

No valid boat registration. The truck is not a boat. It’s a truck. It has wheels. It has a license plate. It was purchased at a Tesla dealership, not a marina. The man didn’t register it as a boat because it’s not a boat. It’s a truck with a feature called Wade Mode that the CEO said could cross seas. If Tesla wants to market their truck as a watercraft, then Tesla should be providing the boat registration at the point of sale.

Water safety equipment violations. What water safety equipment should a Cybertruck owner have? Life jackets? Flares? An anchor? A foghorn? The truck has Wade Mode. That is the water safety equipment. Tesla built it into the vehicle. If the water safety equipment is insufficient, take it up with Tesla, not the guy who trusted the feature.

Operating a vehicle in a closed section of a park. Okay fine. That one might be legitimate. But still.

This Man Is a Hero

I personally think this driver should be commended for spreading awareness about the fact that Cybertrucks cannot handle bodies of water despite what the manufacturer claims. He sacrificed his $80,000 truck. He sacrificed his freedom. He sat in a jail cell in Grapevine, Texas so that the rest of the world could learn that Wade Mode is a lie and the Cybertruck sinks in anything deeper than a bathtub.

That’s public service. That’s consumer advocacy in its purest form. That’s a man who tested an advertised product feature in real-world conditions and discovered it was complete horseshit, all at tremendous personal cost. He should be on the cover of Consumer Reports, not sitting in a holding cell.

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