Tesla to end Cybertruck output, freeing Texas factory for Cybercab

The announcement caps a difficult stretch for Musk. Republican candidates he backed with $446m in donations lost in the US midterm elections, and the paper value of his fortune fell by $113bn as investors questioned whether a Democrat-led Congress could slow the AI boom; Tesla shares fell 11% on Thursday and SpaceX dropped 9%.

Tesla had already been retreating from older models, stopping production of the Model S and Model X this year amid declining sales. The Cybertruck, which began deliveries in late 2023 after delays tied to its steel shell and never went on sale in Europe for failing safety standards, never approached Musk's stated goal of 200,000 sales a year. In the third quarter of 2026, Tesla delivered only 8,300 "other models", a category that includes the Cybertruck, against 478,000 combined deliveries of the Model 3 and Model Y.

Musk has pinned Tesla's hopes on robotics, artificial intelligence and an autonomous driving fleet rather than a steady stream of new consumer models. The Cybercab is already offering paid trips in limited parts of Austin, Texas, though regulatory scrutiny of driverless technology makes the pace of a wider rollout unclear. Alongside the Cybercab and the Optimus robot, Tesla is still ramping up its long-delayed Semi electric lorry and aims to start production of a road-bound Roadster in 2028 — a model analysts do not expect to make a large difference to profits.