How the cybertruck came to embody Tesla’s problems

Teslas sales have dropped this year. The prices could disrupt the supply of key components. The platform republican expenditure bill would end the tax credits for electric vehicle buyers. And Tesla Cybertruck was a disappointment.

Musk has established high expectations for Cybertruck, telling investors that it would be the “best Tesla product of all time”. The angular stainless steel pick-up was supposed to generate buzz for Tesla by presenting new technologies and unlocking the lucrative truck market.

Instead, it has become synonymous with the polarizing passage of Musk in Politics, exposing certain owners to graffiti or fingers in the middle of other drivers. And its reputation was tarnished among Tesla fans due to a series of reminders and manufacturing problems that have caused repair cycles.

In the United States, the company sold less than 40,000 cybertrucks in 2024 – well below the ultimate musk target of 250,000 per year. In the first quarter of 2025, Tesla sold around 7,100 cybertrucks in the United States, according to registration data from S&P Global Mobility. The Ford Lightning F-150 Pick-up has passed it.

In an effort to stimulate sales, Tesla has deployed versions at lower prices of the truck and began to offer incentives to buyers such as 0% financing and free upgrades.

Almost as soon as the $ 100,000 cybertruck has hit the road, quality problems have started to multiply. Reports on social networks have cited cracked windshields and location from so-called rail dust, orange discoloration similar to rust. During her first year, Tesla recalled the truck seven times to repair dangerous faults. In March, with large metal panels falling from the trucks, the statement reached eight.

Some of the quality problems have been known and documented internally before the truck was sold, including problems with the accelerator stamp and the wiper that triggered reminders, said former employees working on Cybertruck. But there was pressure inside Tesla to put the truck to market quickly, according to these employees.

Tesla did not respond to requests for comments.

“Elon Musk will tell you that the biggest professional error was Falcon’s doors on model X,” said David Fick, a longtime Tesla owner who obtained her cybertruck in March. He referred to the design of complex doors which opens up and depends on the roof. “I believe that the Cybertruck will decrease while a company even greater stumbling up.”

The retired banker of Boynton Beach, Florida, has chosen to wait more than a year to buy his Cybertruck, hoping that many of the biggest problems would be identified before chasing his lot. “They do a lot of bleeding things where they rush to the market, then you are a beta tester as a owner,” said Fick.

He paid about $ 72,000 for the car, plus $ 7,300 for window dye and a personalized envelope for exterior garnish panels called Cant rails, covering his new car in a brown metallic color. Shortly after, Tesla recalled Cant rails because they could manage.

“I had tons of reminders on my teslas over the years,” said Fick, who added that cars were worth the worries. “Eighty percent have been set by updates (software), but these are physical things we are dealing with now.”

Musk unveiled the Cybertruck prototype in 2019. At the time, he said it would cost $ 39,900, with a range of batteries up to 500 miles – an ambitious combination that would be an electric vehicle manufacturer.

Work on the vehicle has been delayed for a few years, leaving engineering and manufacturing teams with only a few months to carry out end tests before trucks go to customers, former employees said.

Musk tried to temper the expectations of the speed with which Tesla could increase production, given its unique design. “There is always a chance that Cybertruck Flop, because it is so different from anything else,” he wrote on social networks in July 2021. However, he promoted some of his most unusual characteristics, including his dream of making the car amphibious.

Former employees said they took Musk’s social posts as orders, but engineering has proven to be difficult. By 2022, it was clear internally that Cybertruck would not be able to meet all Musk’s criteria, so engineers abandoned an early design and started again – developing a smaller and landlocked version of the truck, people said.

After about a year and a half of tests, Tesla delivered the first cybertrucks to a dozen customers in late November 2023. A first version of the truck started $ 100,000 and had an estimated fork of 318 miles.

Two months later, Tesla published her first recall on the vehicle: a software update that forced the company to increase the police size on a warning system used in its fleet. It was the first of the three reminders that Tesla tackled on the Cybertruck thanks to live updates from its software.

Cybertruck’s problems could not be resolved by software updates. In April 2024, Tesla published a reminder for the accelerator pedal.

The company had received a customer’s opinion complaining that the accelerator had remained stuck. Tesla noted that the cushion attached to the long pedal could dislodge and get stuck in the garnish above the pedal, causing the acceleration of the car.

An internal survey revealed that the problem was the result of an “not approved change”, in which Tesla employees used soap as a lubricant to attach the pad, according to the recall notice. Inside Tesla, the accelerator PAD had been a known problem starting with the prototype, according to an employee who worked on the game. The manufacturing team also identified the part as a problem, said this person.

Tesla also had problems with the vast windshield of the Cybertruck, which measured almost 6 square feet. Sometimes heavy glass breaks, said two employees. The glass arrived crazy from the supplier of Mexico or the manipulation of the Austin establishment in Texas, they said.

Some owners went to social networks to describe the cracking glass as soon as they left the lot, or while they wiped the interior of their windshield.

The windshield required a large wiper measuring 50 inches long. In June 2024, Tesla published a reminder on the wipers, which the Tesla engines found had been upgraded by tests.

The wiper was reported almost a year earlier, two people who worked on the Cybertruck said. It was one of the first problems identified on vehicles, how it was classified as a “trigger problem”, which meant that it had to be resolved before production could go ahead.

Reid Tomasko, a 25-year-old YouTube creator, took his Cross-Country traveling cybertruck during which he worked perfectly, he said. Then came winter in New Hampshire. He was driving near his home in Lebanon, NH, in February, when a metal panel flew to the side of his truck.

In March, Tesla published a reminder affecting most of the cybertrucks he had produced – more than 46,000. The problem involved an adhesive that could become fragile in extreme weather, causing a dislocation of external filling panels called rails.

Inspecting on his truck, Tomasko said he had found loose connections on almost all the panels that used the adhesive, including large stainless steel pieces on the rear wheels, the front mudguard and the front doors.

“I was wondering, why didn’t they remember other panels?” Said Tomasko.

After replacing several panels, Tesla proposed to buy the Tomasko truck for almost all the $ 102,000 he paid, he said. He accepted.

“I plan to get a newer one for cheaper,” he said.

Write to Becky Peterson in Becky.peterson@wsj.com