Tesla Cybertruck production halt Texas, Digi Mart USA News (Austin, Texas): Few vehicles seemed as much like a science-fiction film as the Tesla Cybertruck, whose angular, edgy design pushed a post-apocalyptic look to its extreme. Evidently, though, not many people wanted to drive it.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has now announced that production of the vehicle will be wound down around the middle of next year at the company’s plant in Texas. He wrote about the decision on Friday on his platform X.
The Austin factory is the only known Tesla production facility equipped to manufacture the model’s specialized components. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request from the news agency Reuters sent outside regular business hours.
According to Musk, the change will create capacity to ramp up production of the Cybercab, Tesla’s model of a robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals.
“The Cybertruck was an incredible technology development platform and lives on in the Cybercab,” wrote Wes Morrill, the lead engineer for the Cybertruck, on X.
When it launched in 2023, Musk promoted the Cybertruck as a futuristic rival to pickups from traditional automakers such as Ford. Since then, however, the vehicle never reached a mass market and has long been regarded as a commercial flop.
The vehicle also faced several recalls and quality problems, while Tesla repeatedly adjusted prices in response to weak demand. The Cybertruck has no official EU type approval and is therefore not generally permitted for road use in the European Union.
Meanwhile, Musk has made the Cybercab the centerpiece of Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions. He says he intends to transform Tesla over time into a robotics and autonomous vehicle company, with the Cybercab becoming the most important autonomous model within a larger network of driverless vehicles.
Only a fraction of the originally targeted number of units has recently been delivered.
