Tesla to wind down Cybertruck production by mid-2027 amid weak sales

Tesla will wind down production of its Cybertruck at its gigafactory in Texas around mid-2027, CEO Elon Musk said Friday. In a statement posted on X, Musk said the move is designed to make room for increased production of the company's planned Cybercab robotaxi. The announcement marks a major retreat for a futuristic electric pickup that Musk once touted as a competitor to models from Ford and General Motors but which has struggled with persistently weak sales. Musk called the Cybertruck the "best vehicle Tesla has ever made" and described the wind-down as the "end of an era."

Sales of the angular stainless steel truck have fallen far short of Musk's initial predictions. When Tesla started production in 2023, he predicted annual sales of 250,000 units. According to data from Cox Automotive and Kelley Blue Book, Tesla sold 11,586 Cybertrucks by the end of the third quarter in 2026, a decrease of 28 per cent from the same period last year. Automotive sales figures from Good Car Bad Car predict there are fewer than 65,000 Cybertrucks on the road in the United States.

"It doesn't make sense to keep it going when it's not meeting its targets," said former Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer. "Every rational auto guy would say the same." Palmer added that the model's performance would likely only be a rounding error on Tesla's balance sheet. The U.S. EV maker began delivering the Cybertruck to customers in late 2023. Kelley Blue Book data shows the company sold only 20,237 Cybertrucks in the U.S. last year, down 48 per cent from 38,965 in 2024.

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The Cybertruck has faced significant quality and safety issues since its launch. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Tesla has issued 11 recalls for the Cybertruck, which has also received more than 175 customer complaints. In April 2024, Tesla recalled nearly 4,000 Cybertruck vehicles due to a dangerous issue where the accelerator pedal could get stuck. The company said it would replace or rework the pedal on all Cybertrucks on the road at the time.

Musk did not say whether production of the Cybertruck would halt completely or be transferred to another factory. The gigafactory in Texas is currently the only known Tesla facility equipped to manufacture the specialized components for the heavy, angular model. The announcement comes at the end of a difficult week for Musk, as his record political spending yielded little in the U.S. midterm elections and his companies were on track to lose more than $180 billion US in combined market capitalization. The wind-down is part of Tesla's broader shift in focus toward robotics and autonomous vehicles, a transition analysts say comes at the expense of the electric-vehicle business it helped pioneer. The Cybercab, which has no steering wheel, pedals or mirrors, is central to Musk's push to merge Tesla into an AI and robotics company. Musk said winding down Cybertruck production would create floor space to focus on Cybercab production.

The Cybertruck was controversial from its unveiling in 2019, when an attempt to demonstrate shatterproof windows by throwing metal balls at them left massive cracks. Pickup truck purists mocked its design, and safety experts predicted regulatory hurdles. "Anywhere where you have crash regulation that takes into account pedestrian impact, that Cybertruck won't go, can't go," Palmer said, noting its sharp-edged design made approval impossible in markets like Europe. Automotive analyst Felipe Munoz said that although the Cybertruck has been called a failure because of poor sales, electric pickups from Ford and others have also struggled in the U.S. market. "All of them lost the competition because electric pickups aren't popular in the U.S.," Munoz said. Musk's SpaceX was one of the model's biggest customers last year, buying $131 million worth of Cybertrucks from Tesla in 2025 at list price, according to its IPO filing.

With files from Global News, CBC News and Yahoo News