After years of persistently weak sales, Elon Musk’s Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at its Texas gigafactory around mid-2027, ending what was once touted as a futuristic vehicle ready to compete with legacy pickup trucks.
Musk said in an X post that the production wind-down would enable the automaker to accommodate increased output of its newly launched Cybercab model, which the maverick tech titan has made central to Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions.
While it was not immediately clear whether Cybertruck production would be moved to another facility or phased out entirely, the automaker’s Austin plant is the only known Tesla facility equipped to manufacture the model’s specialized components.
In response to a user on X, Musk called the Cybertruck the “best vehicle Tesla has ever made” and the wind-down the “end of an era.”
“Cybertruck was an incredible technology development platform and lives on through Cybercab,” Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill said on X.
Tesla only began delivering the Cybertruck to customers in late 2023.
According to Kelley Blue Book, the American EV giant only sold 20,237 Cybertrucks in the world’s largest economy last year, down 48% from 38,965 in 2024.
Before the pickup truck launched, Musk had predicted annual sales of 250,000 units.
The Cybertruck, since its launch in 2019, has remained in the limelight for negative reasons. The vehicle’s angular design was mocked by pickup truck purists, and safety experts predicted it would be difficult to gain approval for sale in key markets like Europe.
The unveiling event itself was marred when Musk tried to prove that its windows were shatterproof by having metal balls thrown at them—only to leave massive cracks in two of them.
During Cybertruck’s official launch in 2023, Musk touted the vehicle as a futuristic competitor to pickup trucks from General Motors and Ford, announcing, “Finally, the future will look like the future.”
However, the future is now about to be a past.
Automotive analyst Felipe Munoz told Reuters that although the Cybertruck has been called a failure because of its poor sales, electric pickups from Ford and others have also flopped in the US market.
“All of them lost the competition because electric pickups aren’t popular in the US,” Munoz said.
Cybertruck’s sharp-edged stainless-steel design limited its prospects in markets like Europe, with regulatory approval becoming impossible to provide because of rules there concerning pedestrian impact.
The Cybercab, which has butterfly doors and no steering wheel, pedals, or mirrors, has now become one of Musk’s key bets in his push to turn Tesla into an AI and robotics company rather than just an automaker.
The Cybercab faced years of R&D and production delays similar to those faced by the Cybertruck. Tesla began offering paid rides in a small fleet of Cybercabs in Austin in September.
However, the bigger test is still ahead, with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) all set to grill the EV giant on whether it has properly self-certified Cybercab to demonstrate compliance with federal safety standards.