Cybertruck Exits After Recalls, Price Increases and Missed Sales Forecasts
Seven Lights
Elon Musk’s decision to end Cybertruck production at Tesla’s Texas plant closes a five-year record that ran from a shattered demo window at the truck’s 2019 debut to annual sales that halved and fell far short of the company’s forecasts.
The pickup was unveiled in 2019 with an angular stainless-steel body, and its armored glass shattered as Mr. Musk demonstrated it. He announced 146,000 orders while the vehicle was still in development. Deliveries began in late 2023 after repeated delays tied to the technical difficulty of forming its steel shell.
Sales never approached the projections. Mr. Musk told Wall Street analysts in 2023 that Tesla aimed at 200,000 Cybertrucks a year, and the BBC reported his prediction of 250,000 a year once commercial production began. Figures from Kelley Blue Book show sales of 38,965 in 2024 and 20,237 in 2025. In the third quarter of 2026 Tesla reported 8,300 deliveries of “other models,” the category that includes the Cybertruck, against 478,000 of the Model 3 and Model Y.
Price moved against the buyers. “We need to make it at a price that people can afford,” Mr. Musk told analysts in 2023, the BBC reported. The launch model with all the “bells and whistles” came to $61,000, and the 2026 Cyberbeast version is priced at $102,000. A recall in 2025 covered more than 46,000 Cybertrucks over concerns that part of the exterior trim could fall off.
The design split the market. Fans compared the look to “Blade Runner”; critics called it “ugly as sin,” the BBC reported. Fast Company called the truck “More than a car, it’s a metaphor,” and pictured unsold Cybertrucks stored in the parking lot of a closed shopping center in suburban Detroit.
Announcing the wind-down on X, Mr. Musk said the change would “make room” for the Cybercab, Tesla’s self-driving taxi. The project’s lead engineer, Wes Morrill, wrote that the Cybertruck “lives on through Cybercab,” wording the BBC read as confirmation of discontinuation. A fan posted that it was “the best vehicle Tesla has ever made”; Mr. Musk answered “true,” and added that the Cybertruck fleet “will be around for a long time.”
The announcement followed a loss-heavy week. Tesla shares fell 11 per cent on Thursday and SpaceX fell 9 per cent as investors weighed whether a Democrat-led Congress would slow artificial-intelligence spending. Mr. Musk had backed Republican midterm candidates with $446 million, and the paper value of his fortune fell by $113 billion after the rout. Tesla shares rose 4.7 per cent on Friday.
Tesla has not said whether the truck will be built elsewhere, a step that would require heavy investment in the specialized tooling its steel shell demands.