Tesla Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill doesn’t get the point of GMC’s CrabWalk Mode, which uses the four-wheel steering system featured on the Hummer EV and Sierra EV to allow the vehicles to drive diagonally at a 10-degree angle below 25 mph.
The Cybertruck also has four-wheel steering, but it can’t drive sideways, despite earlier proclamations from Elon Musk that it would.
“Will have both front & rear wheel steer, so not just like a tank – it can drive diagonally like a crab,” Musk tweeted in 2021 following the reveal of the Hummer EV’s feature.
“Genuinely curious. We played with this in development but no matter what we tried it was a clunky/awkward experience with no real use case. If the wheels could turn 90 deg and you could actually slide sideways it would be amazing, but 10 deg is not enough to be useful in parallel parking and it’s very unintuitive to control.”
Responding to a comment comparing it to Tesla’s whoopee cushion “Fart Mode” feature, Morrill said, “Ok – fair. Agree Fart mode isn’t practically useful either (other than to make ppl laugh). Not trying to knock GM here, was legitimately wondering what we missed. Reading through comments seems it’s also just for fun. Cool.”
One commenter did offer a scenario where it could come in handy.
“Yes, for plowing or off-road, sometimes you get the truck up against an obstacle when making a turn. Crab walk would allow you to get off the obstacle without further damage. This can even happen, pulling into a home garage.”
Both the GMCs and the Cybertruck can turn the rear wheels opposite the fronts to reduce the turning radius, but the Tesla was initially restricted to three degrees. Early trucks are now eligible to get a new rear steering actuator installed that increases that to 10 degrees, while a software update has enabled later trucks with the equipment to also do this.
Both brand’s systems also turn the wheels in concert to a small degree to improve stability at high speeds.
