Tesla is ending production of the Cybertruck, a futuristic pickup it once touted as a rival to traditional trucks. CEO Elon Musk said last week that the company would wind down the electric pickup at its Texas factory around mid-2027, to make room for more production of the Cybercab, its robotaxi. On Monday, he added that Tesla would try to build as many trucks as possible before the line shuts in about eight months, but would have to return deposits to "a lot of people."
A truck that missed its targets
Around the start of production in 2023, Musk predicted Tesla would sell about 250,000 Cybertrucks a year, and he said reservations had ballooned to 1 million. The reality has been very different. According to Kelley Blue Book, Tesla sold 20,237 Cybertrucks in the US last year, down 48% from 38,965 in 2024. Tesla doesn't break out Cybertruck sales, but industry experts estimate about 71,000 have been sold since the first deliveries in November 2023. One of the bigger buyers was SpaceX, which Musk also leads, and which bought $131 million worth of Cybertrucks from Tesla in 2025.
The truck has had other problems too. Tesla has issued 11 recalls for the Cybertruck since it went on sale in late 2023, according to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It also never made it to Europe, where pedestrian-impact rules made regulatory approval impossible. When Tesla unveiled it in 2019, the starting price was $69,000.
Why Musk says it's about the Cybercab
Musk argues the Cybertruck wasn't unprofitable. Instead, he says the complexity of building it simply isn't worth it next to the value of making more Cybercabs. The robotaxi is already on the road: about 570 of the more than 1,200 Tesla robotaxis operating in Texas are Cybercabs, with most of the rest Model Y vehicles, according to the state's Department of Motor Vehicles.
So Tesla is putting its factory space into cars with no driver, rather than a pickup that never came close to Musk's targets. For anyone still holding a deposit, the question is whether their truck gets built in the next eight months, or whether they get their money back instead.
