Tesla’s decision to stop building the Cybertruck around the middle of next year marks the close of one of the most divisive chapters in modern electric vehicles. For one admirer, the news lands as both a public obituary and a private reckoning. He had placed a $100 deposit on the angular pickup in June 2022, defended it against skeptics, and imagined it reshaping the American truck market. Now, with Cybertruck production ending, he is mourning the machine and his own wounded pride at once.
An Unlikely Love Affair
The attraction started with photographs and videos, then became visceral at a Tesla showroom in San Jose, where he saw the truck in person and felt his heart skip. His family was less enchanted. His wife threatened divorce if he bought one, his daughters called it ridiculous, and friends recoiled. None of that shook his faith. He saw the stainless-steel wedge as a design triumph, a machine that looked like nothing else on the road and did not apologize for it.
When sales briefly surged in 2024, making the Cybertruck America’s third-best-selling electric vehicle in a single quarter, he celebrated as if the doubters had been routed. It was a moment of vindication for a vehicle that had been mocked from the start. That moment did not last.
Warning Signs and a Sensible Choice
The price climbed past $100,000, and practical concerns took over. He canceled his reservation, choosing his children’s college education over his automotive infatuation, and eventually bought a Model 3 instead. The truck he had championed from afar became a vehicle he admired but would not own. Then came Elon Musk’s DOGE adventures, which brought public fury, vandalism, and collapsing sales. The Cybertruck, once pitched as a conqueror of America’s pickup market, sold just 20,000 units last year. Tesla has shipped around 16,000 so far in 2026.
Musk announced late Thursday night that production will end around the middle of next year to make way for the Cybercab. The news confirmed what the market had already suggested: the truck’s extraordinary design was not enough to sustain a thriving business. As a commercial proposition, it failed spectacularly.
What Remains After the Failure
He does not entirely repent. The world needs dreamers willing to build something gloriously different, even when everyone else thinks they are mad. The Cybertruck made him smile, and it still does. That is worth something, though not $100,000. The question he keeps asking is whether he is mourning the truck or his own certainty that it would succeed. The honest answer is both.
His farewell is not bitter. It is the goodbye of someone who loved a strange, stainless-steel creature and watched it go from showroom spectacle to commercial cautionary tale. The Cybertruck is being retired, but its , and the arguments it provoked, will linger.
