- Tesla offered 38,965 Cybertrucks final yr.
- That makes it the best-selling electrical pickup truck in America.
- However demand appears to be slowing down.
Tesla offered 38,965 Cybertruck pickup vehicles in 2024, in line with estimates from Cox Automotive. In its first full yr on sale, the Cybertruck dunked on the electrical model of the famed Ford F-150. It ran circles across the Chevrolet Silverado EV. It trounced the Rivian R1T, too. It was the best-selling electrical pickup within the U.S., and the fifth best-selling battery-powered mannequin total.
However does the Cybertruck have the endurance to be an actual moneymaker for Tesla? Or is that this extra of a flash-in-the-pan occasion, fueled by hype that’s certain to fizzle out. Zoom in on the Cybertruck’s quarterly gross sales numbers from final yr, and it seems like demand for the shiny, angular truck could also be already beginning to falter.
That’s not nice information, given Tesla’s disappointing 2024. The electrical automaker simply notched its first year-over-year decline in deliveries in over a decade, regardless of launching a brand-spanking-new mannequin right into a car phase that People, by and enormous, can’t get sufficient of. (The Ford F-Collection truck has been America’s hottest car of any sort for occurring 5 a long time.)
Within the fourth quarter of 2024, Tesla offered 12,991 Cybertrucks, Cox says. That’s a steep, 22% decline from Q3’s 16,692. Earlier than that the truck was seeing regular development, with 8,755 gross sales in Q2 and a couple of,800 in Q1, its first full quarter on sale.
This may occasionally sign that after an preliminary surge of pent-up demand from Cybertruck preorder holders—the car was first revealed method again in 2019, in spite of everything—curiosity is fading. Certainly, Enterprise Insider reported final week that Tesla staff on the Cybertruck manufacturing line in Texas have been being reassigned to the Mannequin Y line, which doesn’t precisely scream “overwhelming shopper demand.”
We’ve additionally seen Tesla pile on perks like free lifetime Supercharging to clear launch-edition Cybertrucks (the so-called Basis Collection) from its stock. The vehicles have additionally been piling up on used-car tons.
Picture by: InsideEVs
However the quarter-over-quarter drop in gross sales is the clearest signal but that Cybertruck demand is slowing down. To make certain, it’s attainable that is the results of production-side points, too, like a reported kink within the Cybertruck’s battery provide chain. Tesla did not reply to questions concerning the slide in Cybertruck gross sales. Tesla virtually by no means responds to media inquiries.
Auto trade analysts have lengthy warned that the Cybertruck can be too bizarre and too costly to significantly speed up Tesla’s gross sales, and that appears to be what’s occurring right here.
“I believe shoppers like new stuff, and new stuff that is inexpensive,” stated Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of trade insights at Cox. The Cybertruck is certainly new, however not very inexpensive, she famous.
“It is going to, I believe, proceed to be difficult to essentially enhance gross sales for the Cybertruck considerably,” she stated, given its steep worth and area of interest viewers.
Amid a wider slowdown in EV gross sales development, it’s change into clear that what individuals actually need—and what’s going to transfer the needle for automotive corporations—are long-range EVs with mass-appeal that received’t break the financial institution. Just like the Chevrolet Equinox EV, our Breakthrough EV of the 12 months.
Tesla went the exact opposite path and appears to be paying the worth. Preliminary pricing for the Cybertruck began above $100,000, and now the lowest-cost mannequin begins at $79,990.
Tesla says it has a less expensive mannequin within the works for 2025. For its sake, that had higher come to the rescue quickly.
Contact the writer: [email protected]
