Tesla confirms the end of the Cybertruck
Production of the Cybertruck, the electric pickup that defined a category and then hollowed it out, will be discontinued by Tesla by mid-2027. The confirmation came Friday morning (6) in a series of posts on X announcing that Gigafactory Texas will be repurposed to ramp Cybercab production, the autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel that CEO Elon Musk has placed at the center of Tesla's robotaxi strategy.
The official statement was brief: Tesla will be winding down Cybertruck production at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production. Musk gave no final production date, did not mention whether the line could be moved elsewhere, and the absence of those details has fueled skepticism about the real motivation behind the announcement.
Sales that never took off
The official narrative frames the Cybertruck's discontinuation as a strategic decision to prioritize the Cybercab. The sales data tell a much more practical story. According to Cox Automotive estimates, Tesla sold only 20,237 Cybertrucks in the United States in 2025, a 48% drop from the 38,965 units sold in 2024. In the third quarter of 2026, the «other models» category — which includes the Cybertruck, Model S, Model X, and Semi — recorded just 8,295 units delivered, also down 48% year-over-year. With Model S and Model X production ending in April, the Electrek analyst estimates that between 7,000 and 8,000 Cybertrucks were sold in the quarter, giving an annual pace of roughly 30,000 units.
That number is a fraction of the 250,000 Cybertrucks per year Musk predicted in 2019. To put it in perspective, the Ford F-150 — the best-selling pickup in U.S. history — moved at annual rates approaching 600,000 units before electrification. Tesla never came close with the Cybertruck.
Recalls and depreciation
Beyond weak demand, the Cybertruck faced a string of problems that eroded consumer confidence. The vehicle has accumulated 11 recalls in the United States as of November 2026, including issues with the accelerator pedal that could become trapped in the interior trim, and a more recent April 2026 recall covering 173 trucks with 18-inch steel wheels whose studs could separate from the hubs. The earliest recall, from May 2024, covered the rear door latch safety issue.
Resale values offered little comfort. A 2025 Cox Automotive report showed the Cybertruck's depreciation reached 34% after just one year and 6,000 miles — far from the value-preservation performance Tesla always advertised for its brand.
What comes next
The production shift is not cost-free. Tesla has built more than 1,000 Cybercabs since pilot production began in February 2026, and the vehicle is already operating real rides in Austin and, since September, in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. The company has an installed capacity of more than 125,000 Cybercab units per year on the Texas line, according to the Q2 2026 shareholder document.
However, Cybercab production has run into the same bottleneck that has constrained almost everything at Tesla lately: the 4680 battery cells. Production of cells using the dry electrode process — the transition Musk called «the hardest engineering challenge in Tesla's history» — is far from reaching the expected pace, and this constrains both the Cybertruck and the Cybercab from the same shared and already-stretched supply pool.
The decision to step back on the Cybertruck may look like a belated acknowledgment that the vehicle never delivered on its commercial promise. But Tesla has shown it can turn failures into assets — and in October 2025, reports surfaced of Cybertruck truckloads arriving at SpaceX and xAI as an alternative outlet for idle inventory. What to do with the 20,000 Cybertrucks still sitting in lots remains an unanswered question.
An open horizon
The discontinuation of the Cybertruck marks the first Tesla product that never won the market it was designed for. The question that emerges is not whether the Cybertruck was successful — the data have already answered that — but what this episode reveals about Tesla's ability to convert excitement into sustained demand. The Cybercab may be Musk's next bet, but the Cybertruck's history teaches that excitement is not a synonym for demand.
Sources: CNBC, TechSpot, Khaleej Times / AFP
✓ Independent sources cross-checked and verified before publishing
