Shortly after Tesla celebrated the groundbreaking of a new lithium refinery in Texas, the brand’s upcoming Cybertruck was caught doing a little groundbreaking of its own. Photos and videos appear to show the electric truck after it got stuck in the mud.
The footage was captured on May 8 by Stephanie Ann Fisher, and posted to Facebook and Twitter. She claims the truck was located in a field, just off the road, about 10 miles away from the site of the refinery.
In some photos, a group of people can be seen, as she describes, “wandering around as if saying what do we do now?” In others, she shows the ruts created by the Cybertruck, and provides them as evidence that it was really stuck, and not just parked, as some commenters suggested.
Read: More Tesla Cybertruck Sightings Show Off Driving Dynamics
A Ford F-Series pickup truck can be seen in the background of a Tesla Cybertruck video, apparently preparing to help extricate the pre-production model from the mud, as Ann Fisher said in her post. It’s really hard to tell from the grainy screenshots, but the pickup truck may be an F-250 or an F-350. I won’t bore you with all of the ways in which trucks can get stuck in the mud (and how often that happens), especially when Corb Lund has sung about it so eloquently. However, the optics of an old school internal combustion pickup rescuing the newfangled Cybertruck, just before it is set to launch, does make this embarrassing for the automaker.
Maybe not but when you leave this mess. You were likely stuck. pic.twitter.com/cl9qdzYpaM
— Stephanie (@stephfischer13) May 10, 2023
And the optics get worse. The truck in question appears to have been the example that Tesla CEO Elon Musk drove at the refinery’s groundbreaking ceremony. As can be seen in the photos, the electric pickup has the same metal tool rack as that example.
Fortunately for the sensitive CEO, there is evidence of other people driving the truck on May 8. Most notably, Drew Baglino, Tesla’s VP of powertrain and energy engineering, posted that he “had some fun muddying up the Cyber” after the groundbreaking event.
As we mentioned, trucks get stuck in the mud all the time, and there’s actually lots of evidence to suggest that the Cybertruck will be quite powerful. Take, for example, the video we covered of the truck winning a tug of war with a Ford F-150. Still, there’s something funny about seeing it get stuck miles away from a celebration of the brand.
Had some fun muddying up Cyber after Tesla Lithium groundbreaking today! pic.twitter.com/DOXRhCkiWq
— Drew Baglino (@baglino) May 8, 2023