Tesla Will Stop Making the Cybertruck Around the Middle of 2027
Tesla will wind down production of the Cybertruck at its Texas gigafactory around the middle of 2027, Elon Musk said, ending a model he had promised would take on the pickups sold by Ford and General Motors and free the line for the Cybercab robotaxi instead.
The sales record explains the decision. Tesla delivered 20,237 Cybertrucks in the United States last year, down 48 per cent from 38,965 the year before, according to the automotive data platform Kelley Blue Book, against a prediction of 250,000 a year that Musk made when production started, a target it never came close to.
But the model's failure is not proof that Tesla alone misjudged the segment. Felipe Munoz, an automotive analyst, told Reuters that electric pickups from Ford and other makers have also flopped in the American market, which suggests the problem sits with demand for the category rather than only with this design.
Quality did not help. Tesla has issued 11 recalls for the Cybertruck since deliveries began in late 2023, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and some of them required physical repairs at a dealer rather than an over the air software fix.
The shape was the other constraint. Its stainless steel body and sharp edges made regulatory approval impossible in Europe, where rules on pedestrian impact rule out a front end that stiff, and Andy Palmer, the former Aston Martin chief executive, put the position bluntly when he said the truck cannot go anywhere with that kind of crash regulation.
And the timing is tied to a strategic pivot rather than to the truck alone. Musk said the wind down lets Tesla build more Cybercabs, the two seat robotaxi with butterfly doors and no steering wheel or pedals that he has made central to the company's autonomy story, and Austin is the only plant known to have the tooling for the Cybertruck's specialised parts.
The week around the announcement was rough for Musk on other fronts. His political spending of nearly half a billion dollars produced little in the midterm elections, his companies were on track to lose more than $180 billion in market value over the week, and SpaceX, one of the truck's biggest customers, had bought $131 million of Cybertrucks at list price in 2025 according to its filing.
For the region the signal is about where Tesla is putting its capital. The company has been shifting toward robotics and autonomy while Chinese rivals gain ground in the electric vehicle business it helped create, and a truck that sells in the tens of thousands is the first thing to go when the factory has a robotaxi to build.
So the retreat is small in money and large in meaning. Musk called the Cybertruck the best vehicle Tesla has ever made and the wind down the end of an era, which is a fair description of a project that proved the company could build something strange and then proved that strange was not enough to sell it.
Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at its Texas plant around the middle of 2027
US deliveries fell to 20,237 last year from 38,965 the year before
The model has had 11 recalls since deliveries began in late 2023
Musk said the line will be used to build more Cybercab robotaxis
European approval was impossible because of pedestrian impact rules
Source: Reuters
