Dong Che Hui
2026-11-10 08:45
On November 6, Musk officially confirmed on X that Tesla will completely shut down the Cybertruck production line at the Texas Gigafactory in mid-2027 and free up all the production line space for the self-driving taxi Cybercab.
To be honest, this day should have come earlier.
At the end of its life cycle, this pure electric pickup truck has actually lost its real consumer market, relying entirely on forced blood transfusions from Musk’s other company, SpaceX, to survive.
The SpaceX IPO application documents disclosed this year show that the largest single buyer of Cybertruck in 2025 is SpaceX. SpaceX purchased a Cybertruck worth US$131 million at the full price in one fell swoop, and brought it back to the base as a work truck to digest inventory.
A phenomenal product that once claimed to have over a million orders, eventually fell into such decline that it had to rely on its sister company to clear its inventory. The Cybertruck's fate was actually already doomed.
From birth to death
According to "Musk's Biography", the opportunity to build Cybertruck came from a question that Musk's son Saxon asked him: "Why does the future not look like the future?"
Musk said: "I want the future to look like the future," and thus, the Cybertruck was born.
In order to completely break away from the same traditional styling of pickup trucks in the past few decades, Musk drew inspiration from "Blade Runner" and retro science fiction movies to come up with Cybertruck, a new vehicle with great visual impact.
It is undeniable that the Cybertruck has indeed set some precedents. It is the first large-scale application of a 48V low-voltage architecture, steer-by-wire, and unpainted stainless steel body in a production vehicle.
However, this extreme edge and rigid body has also prevented it from passing the pedestrian collision safety regulations in major markets such as Europe, directly locking it in North America, fundamentally losing the possibility of diluting R&D costs through globalization.
The unfavorable start at the press conference seemed to have paved the way for a bumpy road ahead.
At the Cybertruck launch conference, in order to demonstrate the strength of the so-called "armored glass", Tesla chief designer Franz von Holzhausen hit the car window with a steel ball. As a result, both windows shattered, creating a crater. This has become one of Tesla's classic rollover scenes.
Despite this, Cybertruck still received what is said to be over a million pre-orders after its release. But it took a long time for Cybertruck to convert from order to delivery.
As a car that debuted in 2019, Cybertruck's mass production was delayed three times due to supply chain crises, difficult production of 4680 batteries, and stainless steel body stamping and welding processes.
Musk even expressed his bitterness in a rare financial report, saying, "We are digging our own grave with the Cybertruck." He admitted that it is extremely difficult to mass-produce this vehicle and achieve positive cash flow.
It was not until the end of November 2023 that the Cybertruck, which had been delayed for two years, received its first delivery at the Texas Gigafactory, nearly four years after the Cybertruck's debut.
You know, from the start of delivery to the planned end of Texas production in mid-2027, its actual mass production cycle is only three and a half years.
In the past three years or so, it is difficult to say that Cybertruck has achieved commercial success.
When it was unveiled in 2019, the Cybertruck announced a starting price of US$49,900 for the dual-motor version. When mass production is delivered at the end of 2023, the price for the dual-motor version has risen to about US$80,000, and the three-motor version has been as high as about US$100,000. The real range has also shrunk significantly from 500 miles to more than 300 miles.
Tesla has also proposed a compromise plan, allowing car owners to pay extra to install an "extended range battery pack" in the cargo compartment, using about one-third of the cargo compartment space in exchange for longer battery life. But the battery pack, which later had a price tag of about $16,000, was eventually canceled in 2025 after multiple delays.
The high price quickly consumed the enthusiasm of the early core fans, and the craze among celebrities and influencers across the Internet to snap up the product only lasted a few months.
By August 2024, less than a year after its launch, the reservation pool originally claimed to be over one million quickly bottomed out. Tesla also closed the reservation system and opened up direct purchases of existing cars in the North American market.
By September 2025, the single-motor long-range version originally used to lower the threshold was also quietly axed.
At the same time, quality control problems with early models also began to break out.
In April 2024, Cybertruck recalled 3,878 vehicles because the accelerator pedal panel may shift, causing the pedal to jam. The reason is also quite outrageous: "Unapproved soap lubricant used during assembly reduced the fixing force of the panel."
Subsequently, problems such as the failure of the giant front windshield wiper motor and the detachment of rear bucket trim and stainless steel exterior trim parts occurred one after another, making this hard-core pickup truck, which is advertised as bulletproof and sturdy, frequently the target of complaints from car owners.
Sales figures reflect the cold market attitude. Musk once boasted that the annual production and sales of Cybertruck would reach 250,000 units, but it sold only 38,965 units in 2024, and dropped to 20,237 units in 2025.
As of the official announcement of the end of production, the cumulative total sales of Cybertruck were only about 63,000 units, less than a quarter of the original annual sales target.
The SpaceX IPO application documents disclosed this year also show that in order to support the Cybertruck, SpaceX purchased a Cybertruck worth up to US$131 million at the full price to serve as a base work vehicle, which further highlights the embarrassing situation of the Cybertruck.
Even with its own company’s heavy financial infusion, Cybertruck’s business decline is still difficult to save. In February this year, the expected delivery time of new orders for the Cybertruck dual-motor all-wheel drive version was postponed to April 2027. The production line has been substantially reduced. It is only a matter of time before the Cybertruck, which has been operating at a high rate but at a low level, will stop production.
Tesla's big contraction
Once upon a time, Tesla described to the outside world a grand product landscape covering cars, SUVs, pickups, supercars and even heavy trucks. However, Tesla today is undergoing a strategic purge.
Putting aside the Roadster, which was repeatedly delayed and eventually replaced the old supercar with a new model, the Model 2, a "$25,000 affordable car" that has been rumored many times but never materialized, and the Semi, a pure electric heavy truck that has been delayed in large-scale rollout, Tesla has also streamlined its high-end product line.
More than half a year before the Cybertruck officially announced the suspension of production, Musk announced at the financial report meeting earlier this year that the two veteran flagship models Model S and Model
After axing the three high-cost, low-volume personalized models of Model S, Model
Instead, Tesla is completely All-in on AI and Robotaxi. By vacating the Fremont factory to Optimus and giving up all the Cybertruck production capacity of the Texas Gigafactory to the steering-wheel-less Cybercab, Tesla is gradually withdrawing from "traditional car manufacturing" and betting on autonomous driving and robot narratives.
Looking at the current situation, Tesla's difficulties in the automobile business are obvious.
The life cycles of Model 3/Model Y have been continuously lengthened, and large-scale updates and iterations are far away. At least in China, Tesla's product generation gap is being smoothed out by domestic car companies. The Cybertruck, which tried to open up a new track, eventually fell victim to engineering trial and error.
But looking at it from another perspective, this also reflects the decisive business style of Musk and Tesla to a certain extent.
When it was discovered that niche hardware car manufacturing could no longer provide a growth story and became a negative asset that dragged down profits, Tesla did not continue to hold on to maintain the apparent "full product line prosperity" like traditional car companies, but directly cut off its wrist with a knife in exchange for chips in the next game.
For Tesla, whose current conventional car-making story has basically peaked, this may not be a bad thing.
Chen Shichen
car editor
Master, drive slower. I get carsick.
A total of 122 articles have been published
This article comes from the column
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