By Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
After sidelining the Cybertruck as he bets Tesla’s future on the autonomous Cybercab, Elon Musk now says customers still waiting for their electric truck may not get one after all.
In an early Monday post on X, he said the number of Cybertrucks ordered “far exceeds our production rate,” which means many buyers will be out of luck following the CEO’s announcement Friday that Tesla would be “winding down” the electric truck’s production by the middle of next year.
“We will try to make as many as possible before shutting down the line in about 8 months, but will have to return deposits for a lot of people,” Musk said Monday.
The news comes as some fans of the boxy and futuristic-looking Cybertruck said on social media that they were putting in new orders or upgrading their existing Cybertruck orders before the vehicle ends production. As of Monday, Tesla’s website seemed to still be accepting new orders.
Musk said in his latest post that Tesla was shutting down Cybertruck production not because the vehicle was unprofitable but because, “the opportunity cost of the complexity of Cybertruck is vastly outweighed by the value of incremental Cybercab production.”
The Cybertruck, unlike other Tesla vehicles like Model Y, has struggled to reach and maintain high sales since it was released in 2023. When the vehicle was first announced in 2019, Musk hailed it as Tesla’s best product “ever.” He later predicted Tesla would make between 250,000 and half-a-million units of the vehicle per year. Yet, between 2024 and 2025, Cybertruck sales plummeted 48% to 20,237 from 38,965.
Through the third quarter of this year, Tesla had sold an estimated 11,586, according to Kelley Blue Book. Meanwhile, Tesla sold 262,491 Model Ys and 106,962 Model 3s over that same time.
In recent years, Tesla has discontinued other models like the Model S luxury sedan and Model X SUV, narrowing its consumer vehicle lineup as Musk increasingly shifts the company’s focus to autonomous vehicles, but also humanoid robots. Tesla’s focus could drift further away from cars as it explores a merger with Musk’s other public company, SpaceXAI.
A cult following
To be sure, the Cybertruck has still amassed a cult following for its unique design despite, or sometimes because of, the association with Musk, whose rightward shift once made him a close adviser of President Trump and the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
After a brief falling out with Trump, he returned to the fold and reportedly spent as much as $474 million in the midterm election cycle to boost Republican candidates. But many of his preferred candidates lost, following a surprisingly strong showing for the Democratic Party in the midterms last week.
Original Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/musk-says-many-cybertruck-buyers