Elon Musk said on X on Nov. 6 that Tesla will stop building the Cybertruck in 2027 and give the freed factory space to the two-seat Cybercab robotaxi. Production at the Texas factory is set to wind down starting next summer, less than four years after the first trucks reached customers at the end of 2023.
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The decision closes a product that began as a showpiece. Musk called a pickup his personal favorite for Tesla’s next vehicle on a 2019 earnings call, and designer Franz von Holzhausen cracked the truck’s windows with steel balls during the 2019 reveal. At a late-2023 delivery event Musk described the finished truck as the finest in apocalyptic equipment, a line that reads differently now that the model is being retired after a single generation.
Musk’s post and the Texas wind-down
TechCrunch’s Sean O’Kane reported that Musk wrote on X that Tesla will end Cybertruck production and use the space to build more Cybercabs, and the post is cited in the TechCrunch report. InsideEVs adds the timing: the wind-down starts around the middle of 2027, and the floor area at the Texas plant goes to Cybercab output. Before construction, Tesla itself had called that site the Cybertruck factory, so the repurposing reverses the plant’s original name and purpose. More Cybercab output at that plant is the stated purpose of the retirement, and the same site had also been named for the truck it is now giving up.
It is also the third time Tesla has retired a product this way. Earlier in 2026 the company ended Model S and Model X production and handed that factory space to Optimus humanoid robots, according to TechCrunch.
Sales against the 250,000-a-year prediction
When the first trucks were delivered, Musk predicted annual sales of about 250,000. TechCrunch puts actual sales at just tens of thousands in total over the last three years. InsideEVs, using Cox Automotive data, counts 4,323 sales in the third quarter and 11,586 from January through September, notes that Tesla does not publish Cybertruck figures, and cites industry estimates of roughly 70,000 deliveries in all. Those numbers do not match each other exactly, which reflects that Tesla reports no model-level totals, but both place the truck far below the 250,000 mark.
The product also drifted from its pitch. Tesla originally promised a base price under $40,000 and up to 500 miles of range; the base price later rose to about $60,000, and top range fell by more than 100 miles. A delay of about two years, partly tied to Covid-19, preceded the first deliveries.
Price rises, trim cuts and the Cybercab floor space
Around the time of the announcement, InsideEVs reported that Tesla stopped taking orders for the entry-level Dual-Motor AWD trim, leaving only the Premium and Cyberbeast versions. Premium AWD now costs $92,490, up from $89,990, and the Cyberbeast costs $102,490, up from $99,990. Those follow a similar increase in August. The same report credits the Cybertruck with bringing steer-by-wire and a 48-volt low-voltage architecture to mass-market vehicles, technology that outlives the pickup.
Cybercabs have run on Austin streets for roughly two months without major incidents reported, TechCrunch says, and Tesla plans to start expanding the service with Dallas later this month. Tesla also operates Model Y robotaxis in Austin, Houston, Dallas and three Florida cities. The Cybercab has its own regulatory question, since NHTSA’s special order asks how a car without a foot brake was certified, but that dispute is a separate matter from the truck’s retirement.
The market around the truck did not help it. Model 3 and Model Y sell hundreds of thousands of units per quarter, InsideEVs notes, which makes the Cybertruck’s 4,323 third-quarter sales look small inside Tesla’s own lineup. Ford discontinued the F-150 Lightning last year after weak sales and rising costs, so the largest electric pickup from a traditional automaker also left the market first. Politics added friction as well. Musk became a major financial backer of Donald Trump in 2024, which turned the stainless-steel truck into a protest target, and the demonstrations continued in 2025 while Musk led the Department of Government Efficiency, TechCrunch recounts.
For buyers, the practical consequence is a short window. Orders remain open for the Premium and Cyberbeast trims at the higher prices, and Tesla has not said whether it will keep building trucks until the lines are cleared or stop earlier once the Cybercab tooling is ready. Anyone considering a purchase is weighing a vehicle with a known end date, a pricing trend that has moved up twice since August, and a production schedule that depends on how quickly Cybercab volume ramps at the same plant.
Musk laid out the 2023 vision at the delivery event covered by TechCrunch, where the 250,000-a-year expectation was set. What Tesla has not published is the final build date, the count of trucks still to be made, or how Musk’s X post translates into a formal production schedule for the Texas lines.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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