Tesla Kills the Cybertruck: Musk Ends Production Next Year

Tesla will stop building the Cybertruck next year, CEO Elon Musk said Friday, ending an experiment that generated roughly 1 million reservations but only about 71,000 actual sales since deliveries began in November 2023, according to industry estimates.

The cancellation closes one of the strangest chapters in Tesla's product history. Musk promised the truck would deliver a 500-mile range and a price tag under $40,000. It achieved neither, as TechCrunch senior reporter Sean O'Kane documented in his reporting. The final version cost substantially more and traveled substantially less on a charge — a gap that no amount of brand enthusiasm could close.

What killed the Cybertruck?

TechCrunch's editor, who attended the November 2019 reveal, described a crowd that gasped — some in revulsion — when the angular stainless-steel truck rolled onto the stage. "This certainly can't be the Cybertruck?" superfans whispered in the moments after the unveiling. The same event produced the now-infamous moment when head designer Franz von Holzhausen threw a metal ball at the driver's-side window and cracked the glass, followed by a second shattered pane and awkward jokes from Musk.

The shock did not last. By the time attendees lined up for ride-alongs, the mood had shifted to endorsement, the editor recounted. That enthusiasm converted into reservations, which Musk said hit 1 million during a third-quarter 2023 earnings call. But roughly 7% of reservation holders ever bought the truck. The math is blunt: a niche design, priced above promise and short on range, met a market that stayed niche.

Zipline raises $1.5 billion at a $21.5 billion valuation

Autonomous drone delivery startup Zipline announced this week that it raised $1.5 billion and is now valued at $21.5 billion. The company also deepened its Walmart partnership, adding 300 drone delivery sites across the United States.

The round caps a frenzied stretch. In early 2026, Zipline raised $600 million in a Series H round and quickly added another $200 million, with plans to expand to at least four U.S. cities this year. The startup, founded in 2014, has now more than doubled its war chest in a matter of months. Whether 300 new sites can turn capital into sustainable unit economics remains the unanswered question.

What else moved in mobility deals?

• Harbinger, an electric truck startup, raised a $240 million Series D as it expands into battery storage and defense applications. The company disclosed no valuation.
• Humble Robotics raised $51 million in a Series A led by Obvious Ventures, with participation from Eclipse, Energy Impact Partners and others. Total funding now stands at $75 million, less than a year after the company was founded.
• Static Media acquired automotive news site CarScoops, adding it to a portfolio of 34 brands that includes Engadget, Jalopnik and SlashGear.

Where do the big partnerships stand?

Amazon has made Uber Eats its official restaurant delivery partner for Prime members in the United States, effectively ending its existing deal with Grubhub. For Uber, the win lands in the same week the company disclosed a sobering AI datapoint: only four rides were ordered through an AI agent during its busiest week in October, the week of Halloween. The mass adoption of AI agents booking trips and rides, widely predicted, has not arrived.

Waymo, meanwhile, confirmed months of speculation and will end its exclusivity with Uber in Austin and Atlanta starting in January 2028. The robotaxi operator is also advancing its defense footprint: Waymo partner May Mobility, along with Forterra, reached phase three of the Department of Defense's ROADS prize challenge — Robotic Operations for Autonomous Delivery and Sustainment — an initiative to test and adopt commercial self-driving vehicles for military use.

What else happened this week?

Ford unveiled a "privacy promise" — what it calls an "explicit commitment" to keep customers' vehicle data safe and give them control over what they share. The automaker also launched a website to explain how, where and why it uses driver data, and to show customers how to change those settings. A promise is only as strong as its enforcement, and Ford has not detailed how it will handle government or law-enforcement requests.

Ferrari's first electric car, the Luce — one of its most polarizing models — is "fully allocated" for 2027, the company said. Serve Robotics announced a new business line, Physical AI Services, under which it will operate and expand its autonomous delivery operations while also supplying technology to other companies building robots. Also, the micromobility startup spun out of Rivian in 2025 quietly started and then abandoned an electric two-wheeler pilot project in Kenya earlier this year to concentrate resources on its consumer e-bike and autonomous vehicle ambitions.

A personnel note with Tesla stakes

Sean O'Kane, the TechCrunch senior reporter who broke the news of the Cybertruck's missed targets — along with scoops on Jeff Bezos backing Slate Auto, Jony Ive's LoveForworking on the Also e-bike, an investigation into Fisker, and Waymo's reliance on first responders to move stuck robotaxis — is leaving for the Wall Street Journal to cover Tesla. His departure hands the Journal a reporter with deep sources inside the automaker at the exact moment the Cybertruck story ends and whatever Musk builds next begins.