Tesla Cybertruck Inventory Swells Despite Discounts, Falling Short of Elon Musk's Vision

Tesla Inc.’s TSLA Cybertruck vehicles are reportedly piling outside the company’s gigafactory in Texas and collecting dust, forcing the company to resort to aggressive discounting.

What Happened: According to a report by Forbes, the company’s inventory for the trucks is piling up owing to lower-than-expected sales.

Tesla’s inventory in the U.S. still has model year 2024 vehicles in addition to model year 2025 ones. The company is now offering discounts up to $6000 on model year 2024 foundation series Cybertrucks and $4000 on non-foundation series Cybertrucks in its inventory.

The Cybertruck is one of Tesla’s more premium offerings. The vehicle starts at $79,990 for the base all-wheel drive variant and at $99,990 for the more premium Cyberbeast variant.

According to data from automotive research firm Kelley Blue Book, the Cybertruck was Tesla’s third best-selling vehicle in the U.S. in 2024, after its mass-market offerings Model 3 and Model Y. The company sold 38,965 units in the 12 months through the end of December, significantly higher than the number of Model S or Model X sold in the country but less than the expected delivery volume for the vehicle.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk previously said that the company is eyeing a production rate of 250,000 Cybertrucks a year in 2025. The number seems unlikely given the weak demand.

Analyst Take: Researcher Troy Teslike, who tracks Tesla’s production and delivery numbers, expects the EV giant to sell just 21,000 Cybertrucks in 2025, lower than the sales of the stainless steel truck in 2024.

"The order backlog is gone. Tesla ended 2024 with 10,600 unsold Cybertrucks because of too much production and low demand," the researcher said earlier this month while also dismissing the possibility of a cheaper Cybertruck variant launch this year.

"A cheaper Cybertruck this year is unlikely because the Cybertruck is not profitable. A cheaper version would make things worse," he said.

Tesla started delivering the Cybertruck in the U.S. four years after unveiling it in November 2023. The company sold only its limited edition foundation series initially, priced nearly $20,000 more than the non-foundation series of the truck. The non-foundation series Cybertucks started to be sold only in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Check out more of Benzinga’s Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.

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