News from the IT community on November 9th: Elon Musk of Tesla just posted on the X platform, stating, "The growth rate of orders for Cybertruck far exceeds our production capacity. We will try our best to produce as much as possible. This production line will stop operating in about 8 months, but by then, we will have to refund deposits to a large number of customers. This is not the case of Cybertruck being unprofitable as reported by traditional media. The real reason is that the opportunity cost associated with the Cybertruck complex manufacturing process has already far exceeded the value that additional production can create."
For further reading, according to the IT website, the Cybertruck made its debut as a concept car as early as November 2019 and reservations began. It was not until November 30, 2023, that the first batch of owners were delivered. There were several delays between the release and delivery. During the reservation period, Elon Musk claimed multiple times that the car had received over 1 million reservations, with third-party data indicating even more than 2 million. A reservation fee of $100 (approximately 667 RMB) was required, which was refundable.
The production line shutdown mentioned by Musk refers to the gradual cessation of production at Tesla's Gigafactory in Texas around mid-2027. The freed up production space will be used to increase the capacity for Cybercab (driverless taxis). Tesla's Chief Engineer Wes Morrill responded that Cybertruck is a technology development platform, and its 48V low-voltage architecture, steer-by-wire system, and Etherloop wiring harness system, among other technologies, have been adopted by Cybercab.
Sales performance is considered to be an important reason for Cybertruck's early retirement from the market. Tesla does not publish Cybertruck sales figures separately; in the second quarter of 2026, the delivery volume of "other models" including Cybertruck, Semi, and the last batch of Model S /X was only 12,364 units; Cybertruck's sales volume in the first three quarters of 2026 declined by 28% year-on-year, with only about 11,600 units sold.
Cybercab is the main model of Tesla's Robotaxi team. It features a golden two-seater design, butterfly-wing doors, and eliminates the need for a steering wheel and pedals, achieving SAE L4 level autonomous driving. Production of this vehicle began in 2026 at the Texas Superfactory, and road tests without a steering wheel or pedals have been conducted in Austin.
This is not the first time Tesla has had to shut down production lines for autonomous driving-related projects. In January 2026, Tesla announced the discontinuation of Model S and Model X. In May of the same year, the Fremont factory produced the last car, and the related production lines were subsequently dismantled to switch to manufacturing Optimus humanoid robots.
