Historians will study the Cybertruck. It is such a uniquely bad product that it is basically the poster boy for the final death throes of capitalism. And that little fact is reflected in its woeful sales. Musk initially claimed that they had $1 million in reservations for the Cybertruck and that production would scale quickly to 250,000 per year, with Musk expecting it to peak at 500,000 per year. Yet, by the end of 2024, Tesla had delivered just 39,900 Cybertrucks and unsold Cybertruck inventory began to seriously pile up. In other words, well over 96% of reservations were cancelled. This year, Tesla has desperately tried to stop this ongoing car crash but has failed every time. And now, the death of the Cybertruck seems inevitable.
One of the biggest gripes people had with the Cybertruck was actually its woeful range. Musk originally promised ranges of over 500 miles. But the longest-range Cybertruck on launch (the AWD version) only had an estimated range of 325 miles, and real-world testing found the actual figure to be more like 224 miles, which is more than 100 miles short of the estimation! Some owners have even reported real-world ranges as low as 164 miles. Who would buy an $80,000 EV with such little range?
Musk’s first solution was a battery extender.
This was a $16,000, 47 kWh battery that slotted into the truck bed, designed to boost the range to promised levels. Sounds great, right? Well, in reality, it was dead on arrival.
Such a battery pack would weigh around 500 kg and take up more than half the space in the bed. So, it would be a nightmare for people to install, it would take up half the truck’s payload, and it would make carrying any long or square loads impossible. Then there is the challenge of plugging it into the 800V main battery and making that connection safe.
Practically speaking, it wouldn’t solve the issue either way. This only increases the battery size by 38%, taking the real-world range to a maximum of 301 miles, or more realistically, closer to 250 miles.
Meanwhile, for significantly less money than a Cybertruck plus this silly accessory, you could buy a Rivian R1T Dual Motor Max, which has a real-world range of well over 350 miles, while still having use of the entire truck bed, twice the payload of a Cybertruck with the battery in the bed, and overall a much more usable truck.
The battery extender was a terrible idea that didn’t solve the problem. So Tesla killed it earlier this year before it had even been launched.
Then, demand started falling. During 2024, Tesla averaged around 10,000 Cybertruck sales per quarter. In the first quarter of 2025, they only shifted 6406 Cybertrucks. That is less than half the Cybertrucks they sold in the same quarter the previous year. In fact, they sold so few Cybertrucks that they had the equivalent of $1 billion worth of unsold Cybertrucks in their inventory. Things were so depressing that rather than scaling up production as planned, Tesla started reducing production at enormous cost.
Tesla had to do something to solve this catastrophic problem. Their solution was the Cybertruck Long Range RWD, which launched at the end of Q1 2025.
By ditching a motor and getting rid of expensive, heavy features like a motorised tonneau cover and air suspension, Tesla could increase efficiency and squeeze an extra 25 miles of range out of the pack, as well as drop the price by $10,000. Surely that would be enough to boost sales?
Well, this trim was widely ridiculed. In reality, it barely improved the range problem, with real-world ranges found to be about the same as the AWD version. But, because it had one less motor, its towing capacity was just 3,500 kg, or 1,400 kg less than the AWD version. Again, for the same money, you could buy a base spec Rivian R1T, which can deliver the same 220-mile real-world range but has a 4990 kg towing capacity and, thanks to its AWD and adjustable air suspension, is significantly better off-road. Plus, no one would think you were a fascist tech bro if they saw you cruising in a Rivian!
So, did this remedy the Cybertruck’s falling sales?
Well, in the second quarter of 2025, Tesla sold 4306 Cybertrucks. That is 2100, or 32% less than Q1! If sales keep falling at that rate, then demand will hit zero by the second quarter of 2026.
The Long Range RWD solution had failed. So, Tesla cancelled it a few days ago, just five months after it was launched.
And now, Tesla has exhausted all its options. They can’t drop the price; the Cybertruck and Tesla as a whole are barely making a profit right now, and all the spare cash is being funnelled into AI, not paying for sales growth. The only options left are cancelling the Cybertruck altogether, which may happen next year if sales keep falling, or completely redesigning it.
This is such a monumental failure that we have to put it into context.
Tesla sold 40,000 Cybertrucks last year, is on course to sell less than 20,000 this year, and, if I’m being generous, could sell less than 10,000 next year. With so few being produced, they should cancel production there. That means Tesla might only ever sell 80,000 Cybertrucks, or less than a third of what Musk aimed to sell each year, every year. That would also mean Cybertruck only ever delivered the equivalent of 8% of its pre-sales.
But that is a hypothetical. In real terms, Cybertruck’s failure has cost Tesla hundreds of billions of dollars!
Before shit officially hit the fan, Tesla had a gross profit margin of 20%, and Musk wanted to sell between 250,000 and 500,000 Cybertrucks a year at an average price of $80,000. In other words, Musk was expecting the Cybertruck to generate between $4 billion and $8 billion in annual profit for Tesla. But Tesla has a P/E ratio of around 100, meaning that this extra profit would have driven Tesla’s market cap up by $400 billion to $800 billion. That is a 40% to 80% increase and would take Tesla close to a $2 trillion valuation!
The Cybertruck was expected to give Tesla its first genuine growth in years and make Musk by far the wealthiest man on the planet.
But no. The Cybertruck failed, despite multiple attempts to save it; Tesla’s profits are falling, its stock price is still volatile but stagnant, and Musk is no longer the richest man on the planet.
However, there is another piece of broader context. The Cybertruck should have been a slam dunk for Tesla. They had the market and technology advantage, and yet Musk still screwed it up this badly by trying to imprint his weird, perverted ideas of what the future should be like.
Yet, somehow, people expect him to use AI robots — a field in which Tesla has zero market advantage and zero technology advantage — and be wildly successful?
The Cybertruck is a monumental failure on a scale never seen before. It should destroy any notion that Musk knows what he is doing or that he is even capable of taking Tesla forward. If it were any other CEO, he would have been driven out by now. The fact that he hasn’t been is deeply telling of what is happening behind the scenes at Tesla.
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Sources: Engadget, Electrek, Car & Driver, Will Lockett, Will Lockett, Macro Trends, Macro Trends, Macro Trends, Motortrend, Electrek, Inside EVs
The Edsel still fills the cultural niche the Cybertruck is trying to occupty. But Ford had enough depth to surive.
Ah the style….it just screams there’s an a**hole behind the wheel