By Ananya Palyekar
Nov 6 (Reuters) - Tesla plans to wind down Cybertruck production at its Texas gigafactory around the middle of next year, CEO Elon Musk said on Friday, as the model once touted as a futuristic rival to legacy pickup trucks struggles to win mass-market appeal.
While it was not immediately clear whether Cybertruck production would be moved to another facility, or phased out entirely, the automaker's Austin plant is the only known Tesla facility equipped to manufacture the model's specialized
components.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
In an X post, Musk said the production wind-down would enable the automaker to accommodate increased production of its newly launched Cybercab model, which Musk has made central to Tesla's robotaxi ambitions.
Musk has said he sees it as Tesla's main autonomous model within a larger driverless network as he aims to transform the electric vehicle maker into a robotics and self-driving company.
"Cybertruck was an incredible technology development platform and lives on through Cybercab," Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill said on X.
"POLARIZING" TECH
Musk had, during Cybertruck's launch in 2023, touted it as a futuristic competitor to pickup trucks from General Motors and Ford. But the vehicle has struggled to meet those expectations.
Often described as polarizing, Cybertruck's unorthodox sharp-edged stainless-steel design has limited its prospects outside the US. Regulatory approval became difficult to come by in parts of Europe, depriving Tesla of major markets that could have helped turn the pickup into a higher-volume product.
The model has also faced multiple recalls and quality-control issues, while Tesla has repeatedly revised prices.
Tesla does not officially disclose individual sales figures for the Cybertruck. Instead, the automaker groups it into an "Other Models" category, which accounted for just 8,295 deliveries in the third quarter, down from 12,364 deliveries in the second quarter.
(Reporting by Ananya Palyekar and Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Jochelle Mendonca and Janane Venkatraman)
