Sudden Changes in Purchasing Options
Tesla has made drastic adjustments to the sales policy for its Cybertruck electric pickup in the United States, currently making only a single model available for order, which is the tri-motor Cyberbeast. Although the Dual Motor and Premium AWD variants still appear in the website's configurator, they are unselectable, effectively meaning the suspension of sales for the lower-cost tiers.
This step comes after a series of successive price increases; the price of the Cyberbeast model rose by an additional $7,500 to reach $109,990. By comparison, the truck's price started at $69,990 in early August, representing a 57% increase in a short period, while the Cyberbeast model alone saw a $10,000 increase in just one week.
What This Means for Buyers
These changes raise questions about the fate of previous orders, especially for those who reserved the Dual Motor and Premium AWD variants. Tesla has not clarified whether it will fulfill these orders before the scheduled end of the truck's production, which was recently extended until the end of the summer of 2027. Additionally, no new inventory of the cheaper variants is currently available through dealers or via the company's search platforms.
Practically speaking, observers believe this move falls within a "wind-down playbook" strategy, as the company seeks to maximize profit margins from remaining units by driving demand toward the highest-priced and most profitable tier, rather than focusing on fulfilling the waiting list for the economic tiers whose initial 2019 promises pointed to prices starting at $39,900.
Production and Demand Context
This decision comes at a time when Elon Musk claimed that the demand rate for the truck still exceeds production capacity, pointing to the possibility of refunding reservation amounts to many customers. However, production estimates indicate that Tesla produced approximately 7,000 to 8,000 units in the third quarter, a rate well below the factory's maximum production capacity, raising question marks about the reality of a "backlog of orders" justifying these restrictive measures in sales options.