Elon's Edsel: Tesla Cybertruck Is The Auto Industry's Biggest Flop In Decades

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Elon Musk’s polygonal pickup is a polarizing sales flop that's missed the billionaire’s volume goal by a staggering 84%. And there’s no sign that things are improving.

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The list of famous auto industry flops is long and storied, topped by stinkers like Ford’s Edsel and exploding Pinto and General Motors’s unsightly Pontiac Aztek crossover SUV. Even John Delorean’s sleek, stainless steel DMC-12, iconic from its role in the “Back To The Future” films, was a sales dud that drove the company to bankruptcy.

Elon Musk’s pet project, the dumpster-driving Tesla Cybertruck, now tops that list.

After a little over a year at market, sales of the 6,600-pound vehicle, priced from $82,000, are laughably below what Musk predicted. Its lousy reputation for quality–with eight recalls in the past 13 months, the latest for body panels that fall off–and polarizing look made it a punchline for comedians. Unlike past auto flops that just looked ridiculous or sold badly, Musk’s truck is also a focal point for global Tesla protests spurred by the billionaire’s job-slashing DOGE role and MAGA politics.

“It’s right up there with Edsel,” said Eric Noble, president of consultancy CARLAB and a professor at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California (Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen, who styled Cybertruck for Musk, is a graduate of its famed transportation design program). “It’s a huge swing and a huge miss.”

Judged solely on sales, Musk’s Cybertruck is actually doing a lot worse than Edsel, a name that’s become synonymous with a disastrous product misfire. Ford hoped to sell 200,000 Edsels a year when it hit the market in 1958, but managed just 63,000. Sales plunged in 1959 and the brand was dumped in 1960. Musk predicted that Cybertruck might see 250,000 annual sales. Tesla sold just under 40,000 in 2024, its first full year. There’s no sign that volume is rising this year, with sales trending lower in January and February, according to Cox Automotive.....

Developing Cybertruck, including tooling expenses to make it in Austin, probably cost Tesla about $900 million, he estimated. And unlike the company’s other vehicles, like the Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover, it doesn’t appear that the Cybertruck shares any development and production costs with other Tesla products.....

In the end, Musk cursed the Cybertruck by ignoring the reasons people buy pickup trucks — to haul things around and drive well in offroad conditions. The vehicle isn’t competent at either of those things, as has been endlessly documented in scathing reviews, a steady stream of “Cybertruck fail” videos and a 280,000-member “CyberStuck” Subreddit. Adding to the embarrassment is a developing sub-genre of videos showing stymied Cybertrucks being towed to safety by Ford F-150s or GM Silverados.

“If there's anything the Detroit Three know how to do, it's full-size pickup trucks with extremely loyal buyers,” Mercer said. “He launched Cybertruck into the teeth of the hardest segment to crack.”