Tesla to wind down Cybertruck production in Texas next year to ramp Cybercab, Musk says

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday said the electric vehicle maker will “be winding down” production of the Cybertruck at its Texas gigafactory around the middle of next year.

Musk, who hailed the Cybertruck as the future of the pickup truck segment, said in a post on X early Friday morning that the end of production at the massive facility would make room for manufacturing of its Cybercab robotaxi.

The Cybertruck is exclusively produced at the company’s plant in Texas alongside the Tesla Model Y and two-seat Cybercab, which Musk has touted as a crucial product for the automaker moving forward.

Musk did not say whether the company would produce the Cybertruck at a different facility, but he later responded to a user on X who called the update an “end of an era” and said the Cybertruck was the “best vehicle Tesla has ever made.”

“True, but the Cybertruck fleet will be around for a long time,” Musk said.

Tesla began Cybertruck deliveries in late 2023. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

The Cybertruck and its polarizing design gained a niche following, but it did not achieve mass-market sales, despite Musk’s pre-launch prediction that annual sales would eventually total 250,000.

“Trucks have been the same for a very long time,” Musk said when the truck was unveiled in 2019. “Like 100 years. Trucks have been basically the same. We want to try something different.”

While Tesla does not break out its sales by model or region, Cox Automotive estimated sales of the Cybertruck last year at 20,237 units in the U.S., down 48% from 38,965 in 2024.

One big buyer of the Cybertruck last year was Musk’s aerospace and tech conglomerate, SpaceX, which spent $131 million buying up the angular steel trucks at Tesla’s suggested retail price, according to a SpaceX financial filing.

The distinct look of the vehicle made some owners a target of rude gestures and more serious road rage, one owner told CNBC last May, after Musk became the biggest funder of Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign and led the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, an effort to slash the federal workforce and regulations.

Wired wrote in an October 2025 feature story, “There is likely no object that feels more emblematic of US president Donald Trump’s return to the White House than the Tesla Cybertruck.” The magazine interviewed owners who described being spit on and sworn at due to their choice of vehicle.

The Cybertruck’s specifications also fell short of those Tesla advertised early on, and in some cases fell short of those offered by leading fuel-burning pickups. There have also been many quality and production problems associated with the vehicles.

The 2024 Tesla Cybertruck was the subject of 11 voluntary recalls, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website. Issues ranged from a “trapped” acceleration pedal risk that could cause unintended acceleration, to software defects and an inverter fault that could result in sudden loss of drive power.