Last week, Elon Musk announced on X that Tesla would halt production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas “around the middle of next year,” supposedly to allow for increased production of self-driving Cybercabs.
Automotive industry observers were quick to surmise that the vehicle’s weak sales, delayed deliveries, inflated pricing, numerous recalls, and connection to Musk’s far-right MAGA politics may also have factored into the decision. Longtime detractors of the polarizing steel-paneled truck, originally positioned as an electric rival to classic gas-powered pickups, jeered Musk and Tesla fans over its demise, noting with some pleasure that the Cybertruck would exit the market within four years of its November 2023 rollout.
And, in Cybertruck fan communities across the web, owners began to mourn.
“Worst possible news,” a member of the Cybertruck Owners Club forum wrote in a response to Musk’s post. “No chance to buy another in future years for a newer model or after a car accident. No more aftermarket mods. No more service or parts.” Another remarked that they had waited for their truck “longer than the truck line was around.”
“So everybody in my group, they are not happy,” Michael Goldman, a contractor in Palm Springs, California, tells WIRED. As the administrator of the Facebook group Cybertruck Owners Only, which has more than 82,000 members, he’s been swamped with frantic messages. “I've had people reaching out to me through the group, asking me, like, ‘What are you going to do?’” Goldman says. “And I'm like, ‘Dude, I don't know.’”
Since hearing the news about the discontinuation of the truck, many owners have expressed feelings of betrayal and disappointment. Some are wondering if their pending orders will be fulfilled, as Musk has claimed that Tesla “will have to return deposits for a lot of people” due to demand outpacing production. Others have looked for a silver lining, speculating that the Cybertruck could become a valued collector’s item.
But Goldman doesn’t want to turn his truck into a “garage princess,” since he enjoys driving it and finds it useful in his construction business. “I don't want to ever drive another truck,” he says, and he considered buying a backup Cybertruck for when his first one reaches the end of its life. “I'll be honest with you, I was going pull the trigger on a [Cyberbeast] about two days ago, and I have a reservation already in my phone,” Goldman says, but when he was ready to complete the purchase, “the price increased like another $8,000 or something, and that was my sign to not do it.”
That Musk, against all odds, actually brought his vision of the Cybertruck to life makes it all the more painful for Goldman to see it scrapped. “That it actually happened and only happened for such a short period of time kind of blows me away,” he says. “That's why I want to call him out on it, you know?”
Troy Meekhof, a Tesla aficionado in Grand Rapids, Michigan, known as “the Cybertruck Guy” on social media, has not been shy about expressing his own displeasure. “I can’t help but think this is Tesla’s own unwillingness (or incompetence) to make Cybertruck a success,” he posted in reply to Musk’s announcement of the wind-down last week. “Where was the price cuts? Where were the advertisements? Where is range extender?”
“I absolutely do think this is the wrong move for the Tesla brand, and it’s not necessarily because of the removal of an under-performing product, but it’s a clear symbol of Tesla’s aggression towards transitioning to autonomous vehicles only,” such as the two-seater Cybercab, Meekhof tells WIRED in an email. “If you ask me, it is far too aggressive, and I have a growing conviction that, at least in America, the population and legislators are not ready nor interested in autonomous vehicles today en masse.”
In another X post, Meekhof warned that “Tesla has lost the plot” by going all-in on autonomous driving as the US enters “a governance era that opposes” the company’s efforts on that front.
Musk has repeatedly declared that Tesla’s future is as an AI and robotics firm rather than as an automaker. It’s a strategy that has increasingly alienated Tesla owners like Meekhof, who despite their excitement over self-driving technology, feel that the company is spurning its core supporters as it pursues breakthroughs in that field. Earlier this year, Tesla axed its Model S and Model X, and the end of the Cybertruck narrows its lineup to just the Model 3 and Model Y.
“Tesla, as a company, has made itself massively successful by making vehicles that appeal to enthusiasts, in either tech or automotive, and in many cases, both,” Meekhof says. “With their transition to autonomous-only vehicles, they leave those customers behind. I am one of them.” Meekhof has launched what he describes as a mostly “symbolic” petition urging Tesla to reconsider the plan to eliminate the Cybertruck from its slate. The letter has gathered more than 5,000 signatures.
Drew Million, an active member of the Cybertruck Owners Only group on Facebook, recently shared on the page that he was concerned about the transition to another vehicle once his beloved Cybertruck has run its course. “I’ve lost a lot of love for Tesla over this,” Million tells WIRED, adding that his interest in the brand is waning due to the “very stale consumer options” left on the table.
Million had ordered a second Cybertruck in February to replace a work van, and he’s hoping that it comes through before production halts completely in June or July 2027, per Musk’s estimate. But he’s dismayed, he says, that Tesla leadership isn’t paying attention to what customers actually want.
“After Cybertruck is gone, there isn’t a flagship vehicle,” Million says, nor one that meets his needs. His household went from owning no electric cars to four in less than a year. “The Cybertruck started that,” he says, and it can’t be replaced by rideshares in autonomous taxis.
It’s a point that comes up again and again from Tesla boosters protesting the sunset of the Cybertruck: They don’t want to give up their own independence in favor of robot chauffeurs. An owner wrote on X, for example, that they didn’t understand Tesla’s push “to delete the steering wheel, the pedals, the ownership, the freedom of having a vehicle” with the Cybercab, which cannot accommodate an entire family. They lamented that the company “doesn't seem to want to continue innovating in the customer car segment.”
Meekhof predicts that Americans won’t soon give up personally controlled trucks and SUVs capable of transporting several people and cargo in favor of smaller autonomous sedans. He worries that Tesla is headed for a “Google Glass scenario on steroids, where the technology came before the people.” Goldman is on the same page. “I think a Cybercab is cool for certain things, but I'm not going to take a Cybercab to a construction site, you know what I mean?” he says. “In rural towns, people want to drive their car to work.”
The overall consternation in Tesla world over the fate of Cybertruck has been somewhat compounded by Musk’s typically muddled messaging. According to the CEO, the truck is profitable and, indeed, so popular that the Gigafactory can’t make them fast enough to fulfill existing reservations—so why, owners ask, does it have to be suspended?
Would-be customers have also been disgruntled to learn that Tesla continues to accept Cybertruck orders, though only for the premium Cyberbeast model, priced at $109,990. “So they can't fill current orders, but will still take orders on the most expensive version ... yeah that's not scummy at all,” a redditor griped this week on r/cybertruck.
And there is a percolating sense of resentment among some Cybertruck devotees that they were taken for a ride, so to speak, with Tesla exploiting their passion for the novel vehicle and its driver-assistance tech to advance its agenda of autonomy at all costs.
“They're a data company,” Goldman says. “What they're doing is collecting data for the robots and for the self-driving cars and for the Cybercab. We were basically beta testers in the Cybertruck for the Cybercab.”
That’s part of the reason that Goldman and others feel they are owed a better explanation of Tesla’s latest move. “We want to know why,” Goldman says. “Is it because we were really just beta for the cabs, or is it really because you guys don't have enough space in the Gigafactory, or is it just because the sales are terrible?”
“Most of the people that have Cybertrucks have been following this truck for the past 10 years,” Goldman says. “We finally got literally the best truck made on this planet, and now they're taking it away from us, and we're bummed.”
