Cybertruck's run comes to an end as Musk kills off pricey pet project

By Nora Redmond and William Gavin

The Cybertruck failed to catch on with car buyers due to high prices and some notable recalls

The Tesla Cybertruck is headed for the scrap heap of history.

Tesla will wind down production of its Cybertruck electric pickup, according to CEO Elon Musk, bringing an end to a relatively brief and controversial experiment.

What Musk once described as Tesla's "best ever" product will now be sidelined in favor of a focus on autonomous vehicles. This comes nearly three years after deliveries first began and seven years after Tesla teased the stainless-steel truck that some have compared to a "trapezoid on wheels."

In the middle of 2027, Tesla (TSLA) plans to change the production lines at its Texas factory to boost production of the Cybercab robotaxi, Musk said in a post on X on Friday. A few months ago, Tesla stopped making its older Model S and Model X luxury electric vehicles at its facility in Fremont, Calif., resetting that capacity toward production of its Optimus humanoid robot.

The official Cybertruck X account posted a video early Friday morning of the vehicle driving into the sunset, while Musk confirmed that the Cybertruck would be discontinued next year.

After production of the Cybertruck ends, Tesla's lineup will include the popular Model Y SUV and the Model 3 sedan, as well as the Semi, a commercial truck. Tesla also aims to begin selling the Cybercab - a gold-toned two-seater that lacks a steering wheel or pedals - to the public by the end of the year.

"Musk is focused on robotics and the robotaxi era," Dan Ives, an analyst at Yorkville Ives, told MarketWatch over email. "The writing was on the wall given [the Cybertruck's] high price points and demand that has been subpar."

From the archives (November 2025): Tesla's Cybertruck is turning 2. It's been a big flop.

Ross Gerber, a Tesla investor and the CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, told MarketWatch that the Cybertruck's demise shows how Musk is "dismantling the car business as the main driver" of Tesla's future.

"The symbolic failure of the Cybertruck is really indicative of Elon's overall failure at Tesla over the last five years," Gerber added. He pointed to Tesla's stock price, which has lagged behind the S&P 500 SPX and Nasdaq 100 NDX this year, as well as his concerns about the progress of Tesla's autonomous-driving technology.

The Cybertruck has never been a major seller, despite initial indications of serious demand. Even as the truck's launch was delayed from 2021 to late 2023, purchase reservations kept coming in, at one point reaching 2 million, according to a crowd-sourced tracker.

Those reported orders never materialized for several reasons, including a number of high-profile recalls. The electric-pickup segment is also not very popular as a whole, despite consumers' love for gas-powered pickup trucks.

Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at the car-shopping website Edmunds, told MarketWatch that the Cybertruck's stainless-steel design wasn't appealing to typical pickup buyers, who are more interested in function over form. It was instead seen as more of a status symbol.

There were also concerns, she noted, about repairs and the cost of the truck.

When the Cybertruck was unveiled in 2019, Musk said it would be priced between $39,900 and $69,900. In 2026, the cheapest model retails for over $80,000, while the "Cyberbeast" starts at more than $102,000. The vehicle also had difficulty breaking into international markets, including in the European Union and Australia.

Tesla sold about 59,000 electric pickup trucks in the U.S. between 2024 and 2025, according to the research firm Cox Automotive. During the first nine months of 2026, another 11,586 Cybertrucks were delivered, a 28% decline compared with 2025, according to Cox data.

SpaceX (SPCX), Musk's other public company, was among the major buyers of the vehicle. In a filing, it disclosed purchasing $131 million worth of Cybertrucks at Tesla's "suggested retail price" in 2025. Tesla and SpaceX have said they are exploring a merger.

"It makes a lot of sense," said Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar, of the decision to pull the plug on the Cybertruck. He noted that Tesla has the manufacturing capacity in Texas to make 125,000 Cybertrucks a year, which can be redirected to make room for the Cybercab.

Tesla will be able to use that capacity as it pursues a broader rollout of the Cybercab, which is only on the road in Austin and Fort Worth, and of its general robotaxi rideshare service. It will also help Tesla manage its spending, which is set to hit a record this year.

"I think here we see Musk as a shrewd capital allocator, as someone who's willing to walk away from an idea that he really liked on a personal level if the financials aren't making sense," Goldstein told MarketWatch.

Tesla won't be fully abandoning its Cybertuck customers, according to Wes Morrill, the lead engineer on the vehicle. In a post on X, he said that Tesla will maintain a supply of spare parts for the model. Musk also wrote that the Cybertruck fleet "will be around for a long time."

"Cybertruck was an incredible technology development platform and lives on through Cybercab," Morrill wrote in a response to Musk's post on X.

Tesla shares rose 5% in recent action on Friday, after the stock was battered in Thursday's session. Heading into Friday's trading, Tesla had erased more than $200 billion in market capitalization over a two-day span.

Musk gave more than $400 million to political action committees supporting Republicans in the midterm cycle. Now investors are concerned about what the election results may mean for the artificial-intelligence buildout, Musk's business empire and his companies' merger prospects.

A "less friendly Congress" means a "messier" merger process, "even if it doesn't automatically block it," David Wagner, a portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors, previously told MarketWatch.

-Nora Redmond -William Gavin

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11-06-26 1354ET