Tesla to End Cybertruck Production in Texas by Mid-2027 to Make Room for Cybercab
Musk says the Austin line will build Cybertrucks for about eight or nine more months, then switch to the driverless Cybercab after years of sales far below his targets.
Written by RUSH's AI reporter.
Tesla will stop building the Cybertruck at its Austin, Texas, factory around the middle of 2027 to free up the line for its driverless Cybercab, CEO Elon Musk announced on X early Friday, Nov. 6. "Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production," Musk wrote. Austin is the only plant that builds the stainless-steel pickup, as ABC News (Lean Left), CNN (Lean Left) and CNBC (Lean Left) reported.
Musk did not say on Friday whether the truck would be built anywhere else. But on Saturday, Nov. 7, he added in new posts on X that Tesla is "still building Cybertruck for another 8 or 9 months" and that "there will never be another vehicle like it." In a separate post he said the truck's order backlog "is currently far more than we can make before dismantling the line for Cybercab expansion around June/July next year," and that Tesla "will add an extra shift to try to get all orders done in time." Tesla has not published backlog figures, and none of the outlets in this story had reported those Saturday posts at the time of writing.
Why Tesla says it is doing this
Musk framed the decision around the Cybercab, a two-seat robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals that Tesla began building in Austin this year and started using for paid rides there in September, according to Breitbart (Right) and NBC News (Lean Left). Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill wrote on X that the truck "was an incredible technology development platform and lives on through Cybercab." Replying to a fan who called it "the best vehicle Tesla has ever made," Musk wrote: "True, but the Cybertruck fleet will be around for a long time."
The Cybercab faces its own scrutiny. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit query in September into whether Tesla properly self-certified the vehicle as meeting federal safety standards, Straight Arrow News (Center) and Fox Business (Right) reported. CNN noted that Tesla's robotaxi service currently operates in seven cities, four in Texas and three in Florida.
Sales never approached Musk's targets
Tesla does not report Cybertruck sales on their own. Kelley Blue Book estimated U.S. sales of 20,237 in 2025, down 48% from 38,965 in 2024, figures cited by NBC News (Lean Left), Fox Business (Right), CBS News (Lean Left) and others. Musk had predicted about 250,000 a year, those outlets reported; CNN cited a 2023 shareholder-meeting "reasonable guess" of 500,000, while The Guardian (Lean Left) put the stated aim at 200,000. Tesla's "other models" category, which includes the Cybertruck, fell to 8,295 deliveries in the third quarter from 12,364 in the second, according to the New York Post (Lean Right).
Outlets differed on this year's numbers. ZeroHedge (Right) cited a Kelley Blue Book estimate of 11,586 sold in the first nine months of 2026, Business Insider (Lean Left) said Tesla "has shipped around 16,000 so far in 2026," and ABC News (Lean Left) reported that sales were down 28% through September. RUSH could not reconcile those figures.
Several outlets also recounted the truck's history: the 2019 unveiling in which two "shatterproof" windows cracked, deliveries that began in late 2023 after years of delays, and repeated recalls. Fox Business counted 11 recalls, citing NHTSA. The angular steel design also kept the truck out of Europe, where pedestrian-impact rules apply. "Anywhere where you have crash regulation that takes into account pedestrian impact, that Cybertruck won't go, can't go," former Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer told Reuters, as quoted by NBC News. Analyst Felipe Munoz told the same outlet that "electric pick ups aren't popular in the US," noting that Ford's and others' electric pickups have also struggled.
How outlets framed it
Most mainstream and right-leaning outlets, including NBC News, the New York Post, Just The News (Lean Right) and Fox Business, stuck closely to Musk's post, the sales figures and the Cybercab pivot. Many carried the same Reuters-sourced passages.
Left-leaning outlets more often tied the decision to Musk's politics and his week. CNN and The Guardian noted that Republican candidates Musk backed with roughly $446 million to nearly $500 million lost in Tuesday's midterms, and that his net worth fell about $113 billion as Tesla and SpaceX shares slid, citing the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Mother Jones (Left) called the truck "synonymous with the politics and aesthetics of MAGA," and The Daily Beast (Left) said Musk "Kills Off Cybertruck After Embarrassing Sales Flop." Raw Story (Left) built its story around mocking reactions from critics online. None of those outlets reported any statement from Musk or Tesla linking the decision to the election.
Right-leaning ZeroHedge (Right) emphasized Musk's earnings-call remarks about strong demand for Tesla's self-driving software, and The Gateway Pundit (Right), republishing The Western Journal, described the truck as iconic in its headline. Breitbart (Right) wrote that the truck "will go down in the books as a major flop in the auto industry."
On social media
On X, reaction from Tesla owners and fans was largely mournful, and Musk's own replies drew the most attention. His Saturday post about the order backlog drew more than 21,000 likes within a couple of hours. Some owners pleaded with Tesla to keep the truck alive; one Foundation Series owner wrote that "Discontinuing them kills that dream." Other users claimed Tesla raised Cybertruck prices the same day; the Los Angeles Times (Lean Left) reported the truck "sells for $92,490 on Tesla’s website," but RUSH could not confirm the earlier prices those users cited.
On Bluesky, the dominant reaction was celebration and mockery, often tied to Democrats' midterm wins. Widely shared posts called the truck "possibly the biggest flop of a car in human history" and joked that voters "Went blue so hard y’all killed the Cybertruck." Those posts are opinion; no outlet in this story reported evidence that the election played a role in Tesla's decision. RUSH found no significant discussion of the story on Truth Social.
Business Insider
Breitbart
Mother Jones