Tesla will have to return Cybertruck deposits to “a lot of people” because orders for the pickup far exceed what it can build before the production line shuts in about eight months, CEO Musk said on Sunday.
Musk also rejected reports that the truck was being dropped because it loses money, saying the decision reflects the value of using the line’s capacity for the Cybercab robotaxi instead.
“The Cybertruck order rate far exceeds our production rate. We will try to make as many as possible before shutting down the line in about 8 months, but will have to return deposits for a lot of people,” Musk wrote on X.
“This is not a case of Cybertruck being unprofitable, as has been misreported by legacy media, but rather that the opportunity cost of the complexity of Cybertruck is vastly outweighed by the value of incremental Cybercab production,” he added.
Tesla does not disclose the Cybertruck’s deliveries or profitability. It reports a single automotive gross margin across all its vehicles.
In its third-quarter 2024 update, Tesla said Cybertruck production “achieved a positive gross margin for the first time.”
Extra Shift with Refunds
Monday’s post marks a shift in tone from two days earlier. On Saturday, Musk said the Cybertruck order backlog was “far more than we can make before dismantling the line for Cybercab expansion around June/July next year,” and that Tesla would add an extra shift “to try to get all orders done in time.”
He now says Tesla will have to send money back to many of those buyers. He did not say how many orders are outstanding, how many will be refunded, how large the deposits are or whether the extra shift is still planned.
In its third-quarter update last month, Tesla said it “ended the quarter with the largest backlog for our passenger vehicles in four years,” without giving a figure or a breakdown by model.
The timeline has also tightened slightly. Musk wrote on Saturday that Tesla was “still building Cybertruck for another 8 or 9 months.” On Monday he put the remaining run at “about 8 months,” which points to early July 2027.
A Reply to a Fan’s Post
Musk’s comments came in a quote of a post by James Douma, an X user who comments on Tesla, who on Sunday had quoted Musk’s Saturday remark that “there will never be another vehicle like it.”
“Seriously. It’s incomparable. But cars are going to become robots, their forms and functions will change, and we won’t be coming back to this moment. Get it while you can,” Douma wrote.
When X user Owen Sparks asked why Tesla did not simply build more factory space, Musk replied that building “a high-volume factory” is “insanely” hard. “Prototypes are trivial by comparison,” he wrote.
Musk had framed the decision around engineers and factory floor space on Saturday, replying to X user Warren Redlich, who had compared the gross profit of a Cybertruck sale with that of a Cybercab in a robotaxi fleet.
“The biggest thing most people fail to understand is that there are a very limited number of smart, dedicated people! They can only do so many things,” Musk wrote.
“If we have to maintain a complex production line, supply chain and allocate engineering for Cybertruck, we can’t use those people or factory space and machinery for scaling Cybercab,” he added.
Four Days of Posts
Musk first announced the end of the pickup on Friday. “Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production,” he wrote.
Hours later, responding to a user who called the truck “the best vehicle Tesla has ever made,” Musk wrote that “the Cybertruck fleet will be around for a long time.” He also reposted a message from Wes Morrill, the Cybertruck’s Lead Engineer, who wrote that the truck “lives on through Cybercab.”
On Saturday, alongside the backlog and shift posts, Musk said efficiency gains would allow a smaller 40 kWh battery pack for the Cybercab and that Tesla would offer the robotaxi in liquid silver.
Higher Prices, Fewer Versions
Tesla raised U.S. Cybertruck prices by up to 9% on Friday, hours before Musk’s announcement. The Premium all-wheel-drive version rose to $92,490 from $84,990 and the Cyberbeast to $102,490 from $99,990.
The cheaper Dual Motor all-wheel-drive version is listed at $82,490, up from $74,990, but cannot be selected for new orders on Tesla’s configurator, which still showed it as unavailable on Monday.
The Premium has risen by $12,500, or nearly 16%, from the $79,990 it carried earlier this year.
Sales Targets
The Cybertruck never approached the volumes Musk once predicted. On Tesla’s third-quarter 2023 earnings call, a month before the first deliveries, he said Gigafactory Texas could eventually build about 250,000 Cybertrucks a year.
Tesla delivered 8,295 vehicles in its “other models” category in the third quarter of 2026, down 48% from a year earlier, a figure that also includes its remaining Model S and Model X sales.
Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book estimates U.S. Cybertruck sales at 4,323 in the third quarter, down 19.7% from a year earlier, and 11,586 in the first nine months of 2026, down 28%.
By the same estimates, U.S. sales fell 48% to 20,237 in 2025 from 38,965 in 2024.
Outside North America, the truck reached only a handful of markets. Tesla began deliveries in South Korea in late 2025 and opened orders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, but last month canceled its plans for Australia and New Zealand, refunding reservations some customers had held for almost seven years.
“After careful consideration, plans to produce Cybertruck for Australia and New Zealand have been discontinued,” Tesla told reservation holders in an email at the time.
Making Room for the Cybercab
The Cybertruck line’s capacity is going to the two-seat Cybercab, which has no steering wheel or pedals and has been giving robotaxi rides in Austin since September 3, according to Tesla.
Tesla’s registered robotaxi fleet in Texas passed 1,000 vehicles in late October, including 544 Cybercabs. Musk said on Tesla’s October 21 earnings call that the Austin Cybercab fleet had “grown by a factor of 10 since launch about a month ago.”
Tesla’s third-quarter update listed installed annual capacity in Texas of more than 125,000 Cybertrucks and more than 125,000 Cybercabs.
On the October 21 call, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering, said the company was building Cybercabs “at the rate that the Robotaxi service needs the vehicles” and aimed to get the first ones to customers by the end of this year.
Musk signaled the change in January, when he said on Tesla’s fourth-quarter call that the company would transition the Cybertruck line “to just a fully autonomous line.”
On Monday, Tesla also opened its Robotaxi service in San Antonio, its fifth city in Texas, and expanded its Austin service area.
