Elon Musk launched the Cybertruck, a cyberpunk-style electric pickup truck, in 2023 with the ambition of changing the rules of the pickup truck market. But demand turned out to be much lower than expected. Its manufacturer, Tesla, sold 40,000 units in a year instead of the promised 250,000. What was the reason for the failure?
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Elon Musk, billionaire and CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla, has dreamed of building an electric truck since 2013. As a result, the Cybertruck electric pickup truck hit the market in 2023. It immediately polarized society and later turned out to be a commercial failure.
The list of failed designs in the history of the auto industry is long and dramatic. The failures are led by the Ford Edsel, the explosive Pinto and the unsightly Pontiac Aztek crossover from General Motors. Even John DeLorean's stylish stainless steel DMC-12 – iconic thanks to “Back to the Future” – was a commercial failure and led the company to bankruptcy.
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And now Musk's favorite project is added to this list – the Tesla Cybertruck, which has been nicknamed the “garbage truck.”
It's been a little over a year since the Cybertruck launched, but sales of the six-ton vehicle, which starts at $82,000, are far from Musk's predictions.
The electric pickup truck's reputation has suffered from numerous quality issues – there have been eight recalls in the past 13 months, the latest of which involved falling off body panels.
The Cybertruck's unusual appearance has made it the butt of jokes for comedians. Unlike previous flops that simply looked silly or sold poorly, Musk's truck has become the target of global protests against Tesla, sparked by the billionaire's political activities, including job cuts due to his role in DOGE and support for MAGA policies.
A demonstrator holds a sign in the shape of a Cybertruck during a rally against Tesla CEO Elon Musk, US President Donald Trump and their recent policies near Tesla, Oxford Street, April 5, 2025 in London, England Photo Getty Images
Sales that did not happen
“It’s on par with Ford’s Edsel,” says Eric Noble, president of consulting firm CARLAB and a faculty member at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, who created the Cybertruck, is a graduate of that famed transportation design program. “It’s a powerful attempt and a powerful miss,” adds Eric.
Judging by sales figures alone, Musk’s Cybertruck actually performed even worse than the Edsel, a symbol of commercial failure. Ford planned to sell 200,000 Edsels a year after its launch in 1958, but managed to sell only 63,000 units. Sales plummeted in 1959, and the brand was shut down in 1960.
Musk had predicted that the Cybertruck would reach 250,000 sales per year. However, in 2024, Tesla sold just under 40,000 units in its first full year of sales. And there are no signs that volumes are increasing this year: January and February were negative dynamics, writes Cox Automotive.
Tesla sales have been falling sharply this year. In the first quarter, 337,000 cars were delivered, down 13% from a year ago and well below the consensus estimate of 408,000.
Tesla does not provide separate statistics for the Cybertruck – it is grouped in reports with the Model S and Model X, its most expensive electric car segment. But analyst Ben Kallo of the American investment company Robert W. Baird & Co. notes that Cybertruck sales have suffered due to the need to fix the problems that led to the recall of the car. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
This decline only emphasizes that the Cybertruck's results are far from Musk's bright promises.
Tesla Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck is an electric pickup truck in the cyberpunk style, which has been produced by Tesla Inc. since 2023. The payload capacity is almost 1.6 tons. The manufacturer claims that depending on the model, the Cybertruck can travel from 400 to 800 km on a single charge. The Cyberbeast version accelerates to 100 km/h in 2.8 seconds. The starting price for the cheapest model is $60,000. Serial deliveries began in November 2023.
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A break with reality
“The demand is beyond imagination,” Musk said on a November 2023 earnings call, shortly before the first electric pickup trucks began arriving in customers. “We have over a million people who have pre-ordered,” he said.
Anticipating strong sales, Tesla has even retooled its Gigafactory in Austin to produce up to 250,000 Cybertrucks each year – an investment that is unlikely to pay off.
“They didn’t just say they wanted to sell a lot, they built the capacity to do it,” says Glenn Mercer, a Cleveland-based head of consulting firm GM Automotive. But the assumption of high demand turned out to be naive, and the company ignored the problems it had created. The Cybertruck turned out to be either too big or didn’t meet pedestrian safety requirements in some countries, making export growth unlikely. “Even China, which was a huge market for Tesla, is not an option,” says Mercer. “This model is designed exclusively for the American market.”
More than a decade before the Cybertruck went into production, Musk hinted that Tesla would eventually build an electric pickup truck. But when he first unveiled the design, it was clear that the businessman didn't want a familiar aesthetic or even an attempt to make something resembling a traditional pickup truck, as Rivian did with its R1T.
“Pickup trucks haven’t changed in 100 years,” Musk said. And the Cybertruck “is unlike anything else.” A few weeks earlier, he boasted at a space startup conference, “I don’t do any market research.”
US President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speak to the press while standing next to a Tesla Cybertruck on the South Portico of the White House on March 11, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Photo by Getty Images
Design vs. common sense
That could be the tagline for this incredible pickup truck. “This failure is a failure of empathy,” says Eric Noble, a design and strategy expert at consulting firm CARLAB. His company helps automakers create products based on consumer research. “The body configuration, the cabin, the features, the purpose—all of these things don’t meet the expectations of the pickup truck buyer,” Noble adds.
The Cybertruck's distinctive look is the result of two factors, says a person familiar with the development process who asked to remain anonymous. First, Musk is a fan of science fiction. Second, it was decided from the very beginning: the car should not need painting.
If Tesla didn't paint pickup trucks, it wouldn't have to build a new $200 million paint line—a significant savings. It would also avoid EPA inspections for the harmful emissions and effluents that these plants often produce.
“They were glad they didn’t spend $200 million on a paint shop, but they probably spent the same amount trying to get the stainless steel business up and running,” says analyst Glenn Mercer.
Musk ultimately chose a stainless steel exterior for the pickup truck, a similar choice DeLorean made for his ill-fated sports car in the 1980s. But because Musk is not a process engineer, he may not have fully appreciated the challenges it poses compared to aluminum or composite materials, one of the sources said. Stainless steel is prone to fingerprints (like on kitchen appliances), is difficult to machine, and has a tendency to spring back to its original shape, which is what caused the Cybertruck’s panels to fail.
The Cybertruck doesn't need painting. Tesla likely made this feature to avoid spending $200 million on a new paint line. Photo Getty Images
“That’s where they didn’t consider the tradeoff,” Mercer says. “Instead of spending money on paint, they spent the same money on stainless steel.” He estimates that the Cybertruck, including the equipment at the Austin factory, cost Tesla about $900 million to develop. And, unlike the Model 3 or Model Y, this pickup truck doesn’t share manufacturing or design decisions with other Tesla products.
“Does the Cybertruck have any technology that can be scaled to other models? No,” Mercer says. “Can other models be built on this equipment? Also no. A stainless steel car without paint doesn’t have much market potential.”
The signs were bad from the start. At a November 2019 presentation to Tesla fans in Los Angeles, a demonstration of bulletproof glass failed. A steel ball thrown at the car shattered the driver’s side window twice. “That’s a bummer,” Musk muttered in frustration. “We’ll fix that in post-production.”
How much does a Tesla really cost?
And then there was the price. Musk promised that the base version of the Cybertruck with a range of 400 km would cost $39,900. But he was almost twice as wrong.
The current price of the base Cybertruck is $72,490, and with options it is $82,235. It promises a range of up to 520 km – if you don't tow trailers or drive fast. The top-of-the-line Cyberbeast is $105,735 and does not qualify for the $7,500 tax credit that US President Donald Trump has promised to repeal.
Tesla has yet to produce the base version of the Cybertruck it promised in 2019. At the same time, the secondary market is rapidly reducing prices: according to the online publication Jalopnik, a used Cybertruck can be found for less than $70,000. But you have to consider the risk of possible vandalism in protest. And the price is likely to fall further: according to the fan site Electrek, Tesla has about $200 million worth of unsold Cybertrucks.
In the end, Musk doomed the Cybertruck by ignoring the main reasons people buy pickup trucks—to haul cargo and to feel confident off-road. The Cybertruck is incapable of either, as documented in devastating reviews, crash videos, and the CyberStuck subreddit with over 280,000 subscribers. The humiliation is compounded by a new genre of videos that feature the Cybertruck being pulled out of a Ford F-150 or GM Silverado.
“If the Detroit Three know anything, it’s full-size pickup trucks with fanatically loyal customers,” Mercer says. “And Musk threw the Cybertruck right into the mouth of the toughest segment of the market.”
