Tesla’s Cybertruck heads for exit as electric pickup loses market appeal

Tesla is set to wind down production of its Cybertruck next year after selling fewer than 73,000 units since deliveries began in late 2023, as weak demand undermines the electric vehicle maker’s ambitions in the pickup market.

Elon Musk, Tesla chief executive, announced this on Friday.

“The move will make room for increased production of its self-driving Cybercab at its gigafactory in Texas,” Musk said.

Cybercab is a driverless vehicle central to Musk’s robotaxi ambitions, as his company shifts focus to autonomous vehicles and robotics, following Cybertruck’s struggle to gain widespread market acceptance.

The decision marks a setback for a vehicle that Musk once described as the company’s best product ever, with the stainless-steel pickup initially positioned as a flagship model capable of challenging established players in the lucrative truck market.

When it debuted in 2019, the Cybertruck’s futuristic design, inspired by DeLorean DMC-12, the flying car in Back to the Future, was intended to showcase Tesla’s latest electric vehicle technologies and help the company penetrate the highly profitable pickup truck market. The Cybertruck ditched traditional boxy pickup design for sharp angles and a stainless-steel body.

However, beyond its intended role as a demonstration of electric vehicle innovation, the truck became a polarising product, increasingly associated by critics with Musk’s political alignment and the wider MAGA movement.

“What’s the most badass, futuristic, armoured personnel carrier that kicks the ass of any pickup truck? Basically, that’s the goal. I think we will make about as many as we can sell for many years,” Musk told investors in 2020.

He said the entry-level, rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck would start at $39,900, and claimed it could outperform a Porsche 911 and showed a video where it won a tug-of-war against a tethered Ford truck. The body was said to be bulletproof to a 9mm handgun, with armoured window glass to boot.

The Cybertruck’s run also dovetailed with a decline in the EV segment in the U.S. as demand failed to materialise at a rate automakers once projected. That trend was accelerated by the end of EV tax credits in America, introduced by Trump and a Republican-led Congress.

While some hardcore Tesla fans once predicted it could eclipse even Ford’s top-selling F-150 truck, the Cybertruck sold fewer than 73,000 units since deliveries started in late 2023, according to data from Motor Intelligence.

By comparison, Ford sold the same number of F-Series trucks in October alone.

According to reports, once the Cybertruck is done, it will have only two human-driven cars remaining, the Model 3 and Model Y, though Tesla has said its long-delayed sports car, the Roadster, will go into production in 2028.

As Cybertruck fans mourned the truck on X, Musk offered reassurance, saying the Cybertruck fleet will be around for a long time.(BusinessDay)