According to CEO Elon Musk on X, Tesla will stop producing Cybertruck next year and will use the factory space to produce more two-seater Cybercab robotic taxis.
This electric pickup truck, with its futuristic design and steel casing, gradually faded from the market just a few years after its launch due to poor sales. At the end of 2023, when Musk delivered the first batch of Cybertruck, he predicted that Tesla could sell around 250,000 units per year. The Cybertruck was originally seen as one of the cornerstones of Tesla's future; before construction even began, the company referred to its factory in Texas as the “Cybertruck Factory.” However, over the past three years, Tesla has actually only managed to sell tens of thousands of units in total.
As Tesla advances its larger-scale artificial intelligence and robotics strategy, it is gradually phasing out Cybertruck, a significant portion of which revolves around the ambitions related to robotaxi.
Over the past two months, the company has been deploying Cybercab on the streets of Austin, Texas, where its headquarters are located. So far, there have been no major incidents. The company stated that it plans to expand the operation of Cybercab to other cities, starting with Dallas later this month. (Tesla also operates robotaxi versions of Model Y SUV in Austin, Houston, Dallas, and three cities in Florida.)
This is already the third product that Tesla has discontinued in order to pursue these larger goals. Earlier this year, the company decided to end the production of the Model S sedan and the Model X SUV, and instead use the factory space originally allocated for these models to produce the Optimus humanoid robots.
Cybertruck was first released in 2019, and Musk has long been fond of this product.
"Probably my personal favorite next product will be a pickup truck. We are going to create a really great pickup truck," he said during a financial report conference call that year.
Elon Musk promised that the design would be very radical, with inspiration drawn from cyberpunk science fiction works such as "Blade Runner." Although this style was indeed reflected in the design, the company exaggerated its expectations regarding the basic parameters of the vehicle from the very beginning. At the controversial press conference in 2019, chief designers Franz, von, and Holzhausen smashed the car windows with steel balls. Tesla claimed at the time that the starting price of this electric vehicle should be less than $40,000, with a range of up to 500 miles, but neither of these figures was achieved.
On the contrary, the launch of this car was delayed by two years, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By the time it finally hit the market at the end of 2023, Tesla delivered a few units to its first customers during a brief event that was somewhat peculiar even by Tesla's standards. The lighting at the event was dim, and Elon Musk stood in the truck bed, calling this car "the most suitable model for apocalyptic scenarios," fitting the "atmosphere of the end of civilization." Its base price has now risen to around $60,000, while the range of the top-of-the-line version is more than 100 miles less than initially promised.
Thereafter, the car's performance in the market has been poor. Its highly controversial design never seemed to truly please buyers, especially when the price was higher than expected. Subsequently, in the first full sales year of 2024, Musk became an important donor to Donald Trump, which made the easily recognizable Cybertruck a target for protesters. In 2025, as Musk led what was called the "Department of Government Efficiency" and laid off thousands of federal employees, this situation continued.
