One of the staggering things the latest Cybertruck recall has revealed—other than Tesla’s use of the wrong glue—is that Elon Musk’s company appears to have sold 46,096 of these 7,000-pound electric pickups since customer deliveries began a little over 14 months ago. This is far fewer sales than Musk predicted for the Cybertruck just weeks before the rollout; he told investors that Tesla would soon sell 250,000 Cybertrucks per year.
On an earnings call a month before the November 2023 launch of the production vehicle, Musk boasted that Tesla had bagged “over 1 million” Cybertruck reservations and that “demand is off the charts.”
“Reservationists” initially paid $100 to join the queue, a refundable deposit later raised to $250. Car companies often open wait lists for models expected to outstrip supply, but most auto executives don’t expect that all of those who lodge deposits will follow through.
“The automotive industry aims for a conversion rate of around 2 to 16 percent” on reservations, Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights for car tech firm Cox Automotive, tells WIRED.
By that reckoning, Tesla’s conversion rate is just under 5 percent. That’s at the lower end of the conversion scale, but many experts, used to Tesla’s stratospheric sales, might consider that a flop. Analysts generally don’t treat the world’s richest automaker like a regular car company. Its stock trades at many times earnings, valuing it multiples higher than companies that sell more cars.
If manufacturing capacity is any gauge of the sales numbers that Tesla was expecting, then the company must be sorely disappointed, because the Texas Gigafactory, where the Cybertruck is made, has the capacity to build more than 125,000 of the pickups per year. But, according to a Business Insider report from January, poor Cybertruck sales led to workers being taken off the “Cyber” production line and moved to a Model Y line.
Tesla’s current elevated worth is based not on its actual sales but on predicted sales of yet-to-be-launched robotaxis and humanoid Optimus robots, which—like the Cybertruck, slated to arrive three years before it went into production—could be several years away from being mass produced.
“My predictions have a pretty good track record,” Musk told Tesla staff at an all-hands meeting on March 20, but none of those present dared to ask him whether he had predicted the anti-Musk backlash that is tanking Tesla sales around the world.
And for all Musk’s bluster at the staff meeting that Tesla is “by far the most innovative company in the car industry,” it really isn’t. Chinese automakers such as XPeng, Nio, and Li Auto are far ahead of Tesla on autonomous driving and other technologies.
Waymo is already offering driverless taxi rides. Nor is Tesla the only company plotting a future for humanoid robots. In a recent TechFirst podcast, author Peter Diamandis stated there were 15 other companies also in this race—and none of those have a leader as controversial or as divisive as Musk.
“This year, we hopefully will be able to make about 5,000 Optimus robots,” said Musk. “That’s the size of a Roman legion. Which is like a scary thought. Like a whole legion of robots. I'll be like, ‘whoa.’”
Musk’s exuberance continued as he claimed Tesla would make “probably 50,000-ish [Optimus robots] next year.” He further claimed that Optimus “will be the biggest product of all time by far—nothing will even be close. It’ll be 10 times bigger than the next biggest product ever made. Ultimately, I think we’ll be making tens of millions of robots a year.” Seconds later, he upped the ante even further, stating that, no, Tesla would actually make “maybe 100 million robots a year.”
Grandiose predictions excite Tesla bulls who believe him when Musk says “I know more about manufacturing than anyone currently alive on Earth,” but back in the real world Musk is in charge of a car manufacturing company that can’t even spec the correct grade of panel glue.
Now on its eighth recall in the past 14 months—prior recalls involved failing windshield wipers, trapped accelerator pedals, and possible loss of power to the wheels—Musk’s polarizing polygonic pickups are in sales free fall. Month-over-month Cybertruck sales were down by 32.5 percent in February, according to estimates by Cox Automotive.
“The Cybertruck generated significant buzz with its unique design and ambitious specifications,” says Cox’s Streaty. “However, sales have fallen short of expectations due to higher-than-promised prices, lower driving range and payload capacity, and production issues. The unconventional design hasn’t resonated with traditional truck buyers, and strong competition from Rivian and Ford has intensified the market.”
The Cybertruck, she adds, is a “niche product with a unique design and high price point, which may not resonate with mainstream consumers. Additionally, recalls and quality concerns can significantly undermine customer confidence and sales, posing a substantial challenge for the Cybertruck’s market success.”
When unveiled in 2019, Musk promised the production vehicle would launch within two years, starting with a $39,900 model. At the actual launch in 2023, the base model cost $21,000 more than that. The Foundation Series model—an early-doors special—cost an additional $20,000 despite offering no physical differences other than a look-at-me logo. Nonphysical perks included lifetime cellular connectivity and “free” access to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system.
Forbes spoke with experts who estimate that Tesla sank at least $2 billion into the development of the Cybertruck. A traditional car might need 200,000 units per year to cover the research and development costs, Olav Sorenson, professor of strategy and sociology at UCLA and faculty director of its Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, has estimated.
Sorenson calculates that the Cybertruck, with its stainless steel body panels and unconventional construction, might require as many as 300,000 sales per year.
At current levels of Cybertruck sales Tesla “probably loses money on every one,” claims Sorenson. “It’s an innovative vehicle, but whether such an unusual design would appeal to consumers has always been a gamble. The DeLorean, the original stainless steel car, sold only about 9,000 units. Even more mainstream cars with unusual designs, such as the PT Cruiser, have struggled to reach profitable sales levels.”
Sadly for Tesla, Musk’s wedge wagon went from a million or more reservations—which many thought would take some years to work through—to walk-up availability at dealerships within months.
This swifter-than-expected softening of demand might have been partly due to the Cybertruck’s now notorious quality-control issues. “When we launched reservations for the Valkyrie, we knew that this would be a highly desirable car due to its limited production and the personnel involved in the car’s development,” says former Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer. “People could rely on Aston and knew [the new car] was something we’d deliver. For the Cybertruck, we’ve seen a string of delays and a moving of the goalposts, which conveys a lack of reliability, and if the OEM isn’t reliable, why should customers be?”
A reservationist from northern Maryland, who says he was sold early on Musk’s promise of an electric pickup, spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity. “I was planning on buying a truck and wanted my next vehicle to be electric,” he says. “At the time, the Cybertruck was the only EV pickup that seemed like it would be available soon. I placed an order with $100 refundable for the mid-tier one, but then the Cybertruck took much longer than originally promised, so I canceled my reservation.” He didn’t regret this decision. “With the events of the last couple of years, and especially the last couple of months, I would never now consider buying a Tesla vehicle.”
The deal breaker for many reservationists was the cost hike. “The Cybertruck was promised to start at $39,990 when the initial reservations began—a stratospheric difference from the $99,990 Foundation Series trucks that were first available,” says Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst at the car-shopping website Edmunds. “Even the cheapest base model now has an expected base MSRP of $60,990, and it’s likely that not many customers are willing to bridge the vast pricing gap.”
Tesla sold merely 38,965 of the angular EVs last year, according to Kelley Blue Book estimates. In January, Tesla introduced discounts to clear Cybertruck inventories with Foundation Series models still in stock, a variant Tesla was supposed to have stopped selling in October.
Tesla is now offering low financing rates to move Cybertrucks. Indeed, it has reportedly buffed out the badges on Foundation Series vehicles that failed to find a buyer so they can be sold as regular models. To clear yet more Foundation Series Cybertrucks from inventory, Tesla dealerships have also listed perks such as free lifetime Supercharging. The electric pickups are even piling up on used-car lots.
President Trump publicly encouraging Americans to buy Musk’s cars at a White House sales event is unlikely to have moved the needle much—and Tesla, which did not respond to a request for comment on this article, is facing a “brand tornado crisis moment,” says Dan Ives, a Tesla bull. The company’s shares have dropped nearly 40 percent since the start of the year, erasing the value hike it enjoyed in December after the election of Trump, a victory bankrolled in part by Musk.
The subsequent animus directed at Musk adds to the many other challenges that Tesla faces, including—the refreshed Model Y Juniper excepted—a jaded lineup of offerings.
Any novelty bump that may have boosted the Cybertruck’s initial sales has now most certainly worn off. Earlier this year, a research note issued by Morgan Stanley cited “decelerating Cybertruck volumes” as a reason for expectations of lower 2025 Tesla volume growth.
Other analysts have also expressed concern, with the Cybertruck cited as a drag on Tesla’s value. Swedish billionaire and hedge fund manager Christer Gardell recently issued a stark warning about Tesla stock. Talking on Swedish TV, he said Tesla’s valuation could drop steeply.
“Tesla,” said Gardell, “is probably the most expensive stock on the global stock exchanges right now. It could go down 95 percent—and maybe it should go down 95 percent.”
While other analysts see Telsa as a tech company with massive potential for non-auto sales, Gardell sees merely a car company. He does not understand why the market treats Tesla with such reverence. Tesla’s “valuation is incomprehensible,” he told the EFN channel. A crash is coming, he believes. “It’s always hard to say when. It could happen in a month, six months, a year, three years, or five years.” But it was clear in the interview that Gardell thinks it is coming.
And, for all of Musk’s recent praise for the Cybertruck’s five-star overall safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—Musk has stated the Cybertruck is “apocalypse-level safe”—any Tesla market crash will at least partially be due to the lower-than-expected sales of the Cybertruck.
Ultimately, Tesla’s CEO might rue the day he categorized his predictions as having a “pretty good track record.” On a 2023 earnings call, Musk confessed that the auto brand had “dug our own grave with the Cybertruck.” If things for the brand continue on their current trajectories, he may well have got this one right.
