Elon Musk posted on X on Nov. 6 that Tesla will gradually wind down Cybertruck production at Gigafactory Texas around mid-2027, freeing up capacity for the autonomous Cybercab.
That means the stainless-steel pickup, unveiled in 2019, is heading for the exit less than three years after hitting the market.
Notably, the sole source for now is Musk' s own post. His original phrasing — “winding down” — implies a gradual production taper, not an immediate line shutdown.
The Abandoned Cybertruck
By the timeline, the Cybertruck' s exit comes fast.
Musk unveiled the Cybertruck in Los Angeles in November 2019 with a $39,900 starting price. To demonstrate its “armor glass” on stage, he had someone hurl a metal ball at the window — which shattered. Back then, he set an annual sales target of 250,000 units and called it Tesla' s “best product ever.”
Yet the journey from unveiling to mass production was anything but smooth. Volume production was repeatedly delayed, and the first unit didn' t roll off the line at Gigafactory Texas until November 2023.
Once production started, the sales curve failed to live up to expectations.
According to Cox Automotive, U.S. sales reached 38,965 units in 2024 before slipping to 20,237 in 2025. In the first nine months of 2026, deliveries totaled 11,586 — a further 28% year-on-year decline. Crowdsourced data shows the 2 million reservations touted during the booking phase never materialized.
Beyond weak sales, pricing remains an unavoidable hurdle.
Image credit: Tesla
Tesla promised a $39,900 to $69,900 range at launch. By 2026, the cheapest variant topped $80,000, while the Cyberbeast breached $102,000. In August, the dual-motor edition jumped from $59,990 to $74,990. On Nov. 6 — the same day Musk posted — the Premium AWD climbed another $7,500 to $92,490, and the Cyberbeast edged up $2,500 to $102,490. The base model was pulled from ordering, with no explanation for the adjustments.
The product-level toll is also etched into its development and quality record. The original vision for a stainless-steel exoskeleton was eventually scrapped for a conventional load-bearing structure with large castings, stretching the development cycle and leaving the production version with diminished performance compared to the unveiling.
Reuters, citing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration records, reported that Tesla has issued 11 recalls for the truck since its launch — covering components from front wiper motors and drive inverters to bed trim panels.
The more immediate problem: current sales can' t sustain the assembly line.
Tesla' s third-quarter earnings reveal the Cybertruck line at Gigafactory Texas has an installed annual capacity exceeding 125,000 units. Yet “Other Models” — a category that includes the Cybertruck — saw just 7,004 units produced and 8,295 delivered that quarter, an annualized pace of roughly 22% of capacity. Over the same period, the Model 3 and Model Y accounted for 478,237 deliveries — 98.3% of the quarter' s 486,500 total.
Beyond the wind-down news, one related transaction stands out: In 2025, SpaceX bought $131 million worth of Cybertrucks from Tesla at suggested retail prices. Musk says the existing fleet “will be around for a long time,” and Chief Engineer Wes Morrill has pledged continued spare-parts supply.
Why Bet on the Autonomous Cybercab?
Tesla' s pivot to the Cybercab boils down to reallocating capacity and capital spending.
Tesla' s third-quarter capital expenditure surged 110% year-on-year to $4.73 billion, while free cash flow tumbled 62% to $1.53 billion. On the earnings call, the company trimmed its full-year capex guidance from over $25 billion to roughly $20 billion, without detailing which projects face the axe. Retooling an underutilized, existing line is simply cheaper than building a new one.
By one measure, the Cybercab has made real strides over the past quarter.
The Cybercab joined Austin' s robotaxi fleet on Sept. 3. Within a month, the fleet scaled roughly tenfold to over 300 vehicles, and operating hours stretched from 9 a.m.–9 p.m. to 6 a.m.–midnight. By quarter' s end, cumulative unsupervised robotaxi miles approached 2 million — an eightfold jump for the quarter. Tesla says the pilot will expand to Dallas in November, and Nevada regulators have already approved up to 5,000 autonomous vehicles in Las Vegas.
Image credit: Tesla
More critical than momentum is whether the cost model holds up. CFO Vaibhav Taneja reiterated on the earnings call that the robotaxi operating-cost target is $0.30 per paid mile. By contrast, Huaxing Securities — citing app data and user feedback — estimates current Austin Cybercab rides of 3 to 8 miles actually cost $1.50 to $2.00 per mile under dynamic pricing. The gap between target and reality remains wide.
Musk laid out a revenue timeline: robotaxi income will begin scaling in the second quarter of 2027 and become “significant” in the third and fourth quarters. He added that most Cybercabs will be fleet-owned and operated by Tesla — essentially transport-as-a-service — and any external sales before year-end will be limited to small batches.
The competitive picture, however, is less encouraging. Waymo already operates across 15 U.S. cities with a fleet of roughly 4,000 vehicles and about 500,000 paid weekly rides. Tesla' s robotaxi, by contrast, remains a single-city Austin pilot with a few hundred cars and no disclosed order or revenue figures. Its nearly 2 million unsupervised miles at quarter' s end pale next to the 16.1 billion kilometers logged by Tesla' s FSD system. Regulation poses another hurdle: NHTSA has an open safety review of the Cybercab' s certification, and Tesla' s deadline to respond after requesting an extension was Oct. 30.
Financially, Tesla is dialing down the weight of its automotive business. Third-quarter automotive revenue fell 3% year-on-year to $20.56 billion, making up 73.3% of total revenue. Overall revenue edged down 0.2% to $28.05 billion, while GAAP net income dropped 43% to $787 million. R&D spending, meanwhile, surged 69% to $2.76 billion, with most of the incremental gross margin funneled into autonomy, robotics, and silicon. In May, the Model S and Model X were idled at the Fremont factory as capacity shifted to the Optimus robot.
Taken together, the Cybertruck' s wind-down is a reallocation of capacity and capital: swapping an underutilized, high-volume assembly line for a robotaxi bet that may not pay off until 2027.
Whether that bet can absorb a 125,000-unit annual capacity, however, hinges on three things: when the Cybercab clears regulatory certification, whether the $0.30-per-mile cost target is achievable, and if auditable revenue materializes after the second quarter of 2027.
For Tesla, the answers to those three questions will decide whether this maneuver actually cuts losses — or simply delays them again.
