The controversial Tesla Cybertruck electric pickup will be retired next year, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X. The angular truck went on sale at the end of 2023 and instantly became a social statement—for better or worse.

Production of the Cybertruck will start winding down next summer at the company’s Texas Gigafactory, and the extra floor space will be used to build more Cybercabs.

The unpainted truck had a short burst in popularity at the beginning of its production run, but interest fizzled, and sales never reached the potential that Musk and Tesla had envisioned back in 2019, when the vehicle was first presented as a concept.

In this year’s third quarter, the Cybertruck amassed 4,323 sales, according to data from Cox Automotive. From January through September, sales totaled 11,586 units. Tesla doesn’t break out individual sales figures for the Cybertruck, but industry estimates put the vehicle’s overall deliveries at roughly 70,000.

That’s a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of sales recorded every quarter by the Model 3 and Model Y. It’s also another reminder that electric pickups haven’t quite taken off as their manufacturers had hoped, and Tesla is now taking the fall, just like Ford did with the F-150 Lightning, which went the way of the dodo last year after lackluster sales and ballooning costs.

There’s no denying that you either love or hate the Cybertruck, just like there’s no denying that Tesla dared to do things like no other car manufacturer before it.

Source link