Elon Musk once said the Cybertruck would be Tesla’s ‘best product ever.’ Now he’s winding down production

Elon Musk said Friday Tesla would be phasing out the production of the Cybertruck, the boxy-looking electric pickup he once pitched as the future of his EV maker.

In a post on X, Musk said: “Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production.”

The changes to Cybertruck production come seven years after Musk introduced the vehicle at a splashy Sci-Fi-themed event at Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne, Calif., complete with pyrotechnics and a live demonstration of the car’s “armor glass” in which Tesla’s lead designer shattered two Cybertruck windows with a steel ball. Just a month before the launch event, Musk had touted the vehicle as Tesla’s “best product ever” during Tesla’s third quarter earnings call in 2019.

“This could be totally wrong. I could be totally out to lunch here, but I think the Tesla Cyber Truck is our best product ever. That’s my opinion,” he said at the time.

Yet, the Cybertruck, which starts at a whopping $92,490, has been popular, but it has struggled to find the mass appeal of other Tesla vehicles like the Model Y and Model 3.

After production delays pushed the vehicle’s launch date to 2023 from a previously promised 2021 launch, production still fell short of the between 250,000 and 500,000 Cybertrucks Musk predicted Tesla would eventually produce annually.

Tesla sold 38,965 Cybertrucks in the U.S. in 2024 and then just 20,237 in 2025, a decline of 48%, according to estimates by Kelley Blue Book. In the first half of the year, Kelley Blue Book’s parent company Cox Automotive also estimated Tesla sold a total of 7,263 Cybertrucks, which would put them on track for yet another year-over-year sales decline this year. Tesla does not break out its Cybertruck sales in its public filings.

Musk has now pivoted the company’s future prospects to the autonomous Cybercab, which he announced to fanfare at an event in 2024. The first Cybercabs hit roads in Austin, Texas, in September. Tesla also has Robotaxi operations, using the Model Y, in Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth in Texas as well as Miami, Orlando, and Tampa in Florida, with plans for more U.S. cities to be included later.

The shift away from Cybertruck production comes as Tesla seeks to convince investors autonomous technology can drive growth in the future by surpassing traditional EV sales, which have fallen since President Donald Trump ended the EV tax credit last year. Tesla sells the most EVs of any company in the U.S.

The EV maker has positioned its Cybercab, a two-seater without a steering wheel or pedals, as key to its expansion into autonomous transportation and robotics.

But the new vehicle also faces hurdles. Federal auto safety regulators in September opened an investigation into whether Tesla properly certified that the Cybercab complies with federal vehicle safety standards. At the end of October, Tesla submitted its answers to questions from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), but requested its responses remain sealed because they are “confidential business information.” The NHTSA has not yet ruled on Tesla’s confidentiality request, according to Electrek.

In the autonomous robotaxi market, Tesla is entering late. Alphabet’s Waymo already operates in 15 U.S. cities and reportedly provides 500,000 rides per week, it said in an X post earlier this year.