Tesla Kills Cybertruck in 2027 to Make Room for Robotaxis

Tesla will stop building the Cybertruck next year, CEO Elon Musk said on X, ending production of a truck he once promised would sell 250,000 units annually. The factory space will go toward building more two-seater Cybercab robotaxis.

The math is brutal. Tesla has sold just tens of thousands of Cybertrucks in total over three years — roughly a tenth of the annual target Musk set when he handed over the first trucks in late 2023. That shortfall came despite the company once billing its Texas plant as the "Cybertruck factory" before construction began.

The discontinuation is not an isolated cut. It is the third product Tesla has axed to chase its AI and robotics ambitions. Earlier this year the company ended production of the Model S sedan and Model X SUV and redirected that factory space toward Optimus, its humanoid robot. The Cybertruck's line will now feed the robotaxi program instead.

How did the robotaxi push get here?

Tesla has spent the last two months running Cybercabs on the streets of Austin, Texas. The company says it has had no major incidents to date and plans to expand to other cities, starting with Dallas later this month. Tesla also operates robotaxi versions of its Model Y SUVs in Austin, Houston and Dallas, as well as in three cities in Florida.

A two-month incident-free record is thin evidence for a business Tesla is now betting factory space on. The company has not said how many Cybercabs are on the road or what the service earns.

What did Musk originally promise?

The gap between promise and product runs long. Musk first announced the Cybertruck in 2019 and made his attachment explicit on an earnings call that year:

"Probably my personal favorite for the next product is the pickup truck, and we are going to just do an amazing pickup truck."

He promised a radical machine inspired by cyberpunk sci-fi such as Blade Runner. At the now-infamous 2019 reveal event — where head designer Franz von Holzhausen cracked the truck's windows with steel balls — Tesla said the EV would start under $40,000 and offer up to 500 miles of range. It delivered neither figure.

How far short did the truck fall?

The Cybertruck arrived two years late, delayed in part by the Covid-19 pandemic. When deliveries began in late 2023, the launch event was short and, by Tesla's own standards, odd: a poorly lit Musk stood in a truck bed and called the vehicle "the finest in apocalyptic equipment" fit for "late civilization vibes."

By then the base price had climbed to around $60,000 — 50 percent above the original promise — and the top-end range had shrunk by more than 100 miles.

The market never warmed to it. Buyers balked at the polarizing design at a higher-than-expected price. Then politics intervened: during the truck's first full sales year in 2024, Musk became a major financial backer of Donald Trump, and the instantly recognizable Cybertruck became a target for protesters. That continued into 2025 as Musk led the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which fired thousands of federal workers.

What happens now?

Tesla is dismantling its consumer lineup — the Model S, Model X and now the Cybertruck — to free capacity for Optimus robots and robotaxis, products with no proven revenue yet. Whether that bet pays off depends on whether an Austin pilot with a clean two-month record can scale to a national service. For now, Tesla is trading trucks it couldn't sell enough of for cabs it hasn't yet had to prove at scale.