Sales collapsed: why Musk's Cybertruck failed to meet expectations

The Tesla Cybertruck, touted by Elon Musk as a revolutionary pickup, has faced catastrophically low sales. In its first year, fewer than 40,000 units were sold instead of the projected 500,000, and in the last year in the US, only about 7,100. Experts compare the failure to the Ford Edsel of the 1950s.

The futuristic electric pickup truck Tesla Cybertruck, which Elon Musk predicted would revolutionize the auto market, risks becoming one of the most notable commercial failures in American automotive history. Before sales began, Musk created an aura of invincibility around the model, calling it a 'tank for the apocalypse.' However, reality proved harsher: the pickup earned a reputation as a finicky and unreliable vehicle, and its design became fodder for memes and criticism. The key blow was catastrophically low sales: the company forecast up to 500,000 pickups annually, but in the first year it failed to cross even 40,000 units. According to S&P Global Mobility, only about 7,100 units were sold in the US in the last year, with analysts suspecting that Tesla partially inflated figures by selling vehicles to Musk's own companies. Journalists draw parallels to the failure of the Ford Edsel in the 1950s, which also suffered from a distinctive design. Unlike Ford, Tesla is unlikely to discontinue the Cybertruck due to its symbolic importance to Musk, but experts are skeptical: CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson called attempts to revive sales 'futile.'