They were reassigned to work on the Model Y instead.
CyberSlump
Tesla is moving workers away from Cybertruck production at its Austin factory to focus on the Model Y instead, with three workers at the plant telling Business Insider that they were being reassigned to work on the best-selling SUV.
The Elon Musk-led EV maker has been grappling with dropping overall sales. Earlier this month, Tesla announced the first year-over-year drop in the number of deliveries in over a decade, a notable shift highlighting weakening consumer demand — and a likely sign that Trump’s anti-EV push could further exacerbate its woes.
The Cybertruck in particular has proven highly controversial. Despite becoming a political lightning rod, the truck became the best-selling EV pickup in the US in October, outpacing the Ford F-150 Lightning — but read further, because in absolute terms, it’s barely moving the needle.
While it’s unclear how the recent slump in sales affected the number of Cybertrucks sold — Tesla doesn’t publicize specific sales numbers for the vehicle — the most recent worker reassignments could be an early warning sign that the divisive truck’s popularity is waning.
Reassign of the Times
According to BI‘s sources, some workers on the Cybertruck team were “forced to switch over” to work on the Model Y, despite wanting to stay on. One worker who spoke with the publication suggested the shift could be due to higher profit margins for the SUV.
Last month, an internal memo obtained by BI revealed that workers at the company’s Austin factory were told to take the next three days off, while still receiving eight hours of pay, likely due to production imbalances and a lack of working batteries.
Meanwhile, Tesla is trying to push up demand for the pickup by lowering leasing prices.
Besides possibly weakening demand, the Cybertruck has made headlines for repeatedly being recalled, suffering from major structural issues and puzzling design decisions.
Whether Tesla will be able to ward off increasing competition in 2025, especially given a slowing demand for EVs overall, remains to be seen.
In the grand scheme of things, the Cybertruck will likely remain more of a distraction and a rounding error in the company’s overall sales. Tesla sold somewhere north of 27,000 trucks since it started deliveries in late 2023, in comparison to a whopping 1.7 million Model 3 and Model Y vehicles last year.
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