{"id":3969,"date":"2026-11-07T12:03:43","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T07:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3969"},"modified":"2026-11-07T12:03:43","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T07:03:43","slug":"tesla-to-pull-the-plug-on-cybertruck-after-years-of-poor-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3969","title":{"rendered":"Tesla to pull the plug on Cybertruck after years of poor sales"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at its Texas gigafactory around mid-2027, CEO Elon Musk said on Friday, after years of persistently weak \u200bsales for a futuristic model once touted as a rival to legacy pickup trucks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The move is a major retreat from what has been one of Musk\u2019s pet projects. In an \u200cX post, Musk said the wind-down would let Tesla make more of the Cybercab, a robotaxi he has made central to the automaker\u2019s autonomous-vehicle ambitions, but one that has yet to prove itself commercially.<\/p>\n

The announcement comes at the end of a bruising week for Musk, as his record political spending<\/a> of nearly half a billion dollars yielded little in Tuesday\u2019s US midterm elections<\/a>, with the vast majority of the Republican candidates he backed losing their races.<\/p>\n

Combined, his companies were on track to lose more than $180 billion in \u200bmarket capitalization for the week.<\/p>\n

While it was not immediately clear whether Cybertruck production would be moved to another facility or phased out entirely, the automaker\u2019s Austin plant is the only known Tesla facility \u200bequipped to manufacture the specialised components for the heavy, angular model.<\/p>\n

In response to a user on X, Musk called the Cybertruck the \u201cbest vehicle Tesla has ever \u2060made\u201d and the wind-down the \u201cend of an era.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tesla has been shifting its focus to robotics and autonomy, a transition analysts say comes at the expense of the electric-vehicle business it helped pioneer as Chinese rivals gain ground.<\/p>\n

The \u200bUS EV maker began delivering the Cybertruck to customers in late 2023.<\/p>\n

According to automotive data platform Kelley Blue Book, the company only sold 20,237 Cybertrucks in the US last year, down 48% from 38,965 in \u200b2024. Around the start of production in 2023, Musk had predicted annual sales of 250,000 units.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t make sense to keep it going when it\u2019s not meeting its targets,\u201d said former Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer. \u201cEvery rational auto guy would say the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will no doubt only be a rounding error on Tesla\u2019s balance sheet, but the statistics speak for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s SpaceX was one of the model\u2019s biggest customers last year and bought Cybertrucks worth $131 million from Tesla in 2025 at list price, \u200baccording to its IPO filing.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u2018Cybertruck won\u2019t go, can\u2019t go\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Right from its unveiling in 2019, the Cybertruck was a controversial choice for Musk. Pickup truck purists mocked its angular design, and safety experts predicted it would be \u200bhard<\/a> to gain approval for sale in key markets like Europe.<\/p>\n

The unveiling event itself was marred when Musk tried to prove that its windows were shatterproof by having metal balls thrown at them \u2014 only to leave massive cracks<\/a> in two of \u200cthem.<\/p>\n

During Cybertruck\u2019s official \u2060launch<\/a> in 2023, Musk touted it as a futuristic competitor to pickup trucks from General Motors and Ford, saying \u201cfinally, the future will look like the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the model has struggled<\/a> to meet those expectations. Tesla has issued 11 recalls for the Cybertruck since it went on sale in late 2023, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.<\/p>\n

Some vehicles required physical repairs, while others were fixed with over-the-air software updates.<\/p>\n

Automotive analyst Felipe Munoz said that although the Cybertruck has been called a failure because of its poor sales, electric pickups from Ford and others have also flopped in the US market.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of them lost the competition because electric pickups aren\u2019t popular in the US,\u201d Munoz said.<\/p>\n

But Cybertruck\u2019s sharp-edged \u200bstainless-steel design limited its prospects in markets like \u2060Europe, where EVs are more popular. Regulatory approval was impossible for Europe because of rules there concerning pedestrian impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnywhere where you have crash regulation that takes into account pedestrian impact, that Cybertruck won\u2019t go, can\u2019t go,\u201d former Aston Martin CEO Palmer said.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Musk\u2019s new bet<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Cybertruck, which has butterfly doors and no steering wheel, pedals \u200b, or mirrors, is one of Musk\u2019s key bets in his push to turn Tesla into an AI and robotics company rather than just an automaker.<\/p>\n

Musk has \u200bsaid he sees it as \u2060Tesla\u2019s main autonomous model supplying a global network of robotaxis.<\/p>\n

After years of delays to Musk\u2019s self-driving targets, Tesla began offering paid rides<\/a> in a small fleet of Cybertrucks in Austin in September.<\/p>\n

However, the automaker still has to answer<\/a> the US auto safety agency\u2019s questions on whether it has properly self-certified Cybercab to demonstrate compliance with federal motor vehicle safety standards.<\/p>\n

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit in September to review the basis for that certification.<\/p>\n

\u201cCybertruck was \u2060an incredible technology \u200bdevelopment platform and lives on through Cybertruck,\u201d Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill said on X.<\/p>\n

However, the Cybertruck is unlikely to make \u200bup for lost Cybertruck volumes soon. The two-seater robotaxi is still a small program, with production beginning only earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Tesla has listed an installed capacity of more than 125,000 units.<\/p>\n

About 570 of the more than 1,200 Tesla robotaxis operating in Texas are \u200bCybercabs, with the rest mainly Model Y vehicles, according to the state\u2019s Department of Motor Vehicles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at its Texas gigafactory around mid-2027, CEO Elon Musk said on Friday, after years of persistently weak \u200bsales for a futuristic model once touted as a rival to legacy pickup trucks. The move is a major retreat from what has been one of Musk\u2019s pet projects. In an \u200cX post, Musk said the wind-down would let Tesla make more of the Cybercab, a robotaxi he has made central to the automaker\u2019s autonomous-vehicle ambitions, but one that has yet to prove itself commercially. The announcement…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}