> EV sales share in the US is down to 6% (and falling every quarter).

It's not every quarter, but it's steady and that spells absolute disaster for US car manufacturers:

https://www.coxautoinc.com/insights/q3-2026-ev-sales-report-...

US car companies have been protected and bailed out too many times and are now not only completely uncompetitive on the global market, but set up to be completely demolished as EVs take over.

Their bad leadership and overall inefficiency mean that either investors are going to pay a massive price, or US consumers are going to pay a massive price. If we keep on pushing up consumer costs by propping up bad manufacturers with protectionism and bail outs, the US's entire economy is drug down by that.

There needs to be some creative destruction, ruthless culling of the least efficient manufacturers, so that their best workers can go to the better manufacturers, if the US is ever going to be a top tier car manufacturer again.

I hadn't followed just how bad US manufacturers were failing at EVs the past two years, what with all the other disasters unfolding, thanks for the wake up call. Two years of wasted time, of the US falling even farther behind... such a massive fail and yet not the most massive.

> - Chinese EVs are dominating every market outside the US.

Not so in Europe, where the top 10 EVs sold in 2025 [1] has not a single Chinese car.

[1] https://autorai.nl/tesla-van-de-troon-gestoten-als-populairs...

Hundreds of Cybercabs are driving around cities right now with no steering wheel or pedal making money and growing 20% a week, Model Y is the best selling car (of any type) in the planet. European sales are going through the roof, they are doubling production.

Cybertruck was a mistake but rest of the business is printing cash hand over fist.

I think they have a future as a "normal" car company, but in order to do that they'd have to manage to deliver a new "normal car" model at some point, and accept normal stock prices.

That EV market share direction in the US, though .. really bad compared to non-petrostates (except Norway)

Wikipedia maintains a list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...

It’s slightly amazing how persistent the Elon hype is. Quite a few of those problems are at least partially due to own goals that Musk himself has been scoring.

I realize that some of it is just a cult of personality, and that part will be unusually sticky because of things like cognitive dissonance. But that can’t be all of it. My next best guess is a bunch of it is a whole bunch of institutional investors are privately thinking these companies are way too risky, but keep it to themselves because it’s not their money they’re putting on the line and taking a contrarian position would risk angering a presumably vocal subset of clients of unknown size. Which isn’t a great way to make yourself popular with your boss.

There’s a severe lack of focus and the only endgame that still makes sense to me for Tesla is basically turning into a cab service like Waymo. Perhaps you own the car perhaps not.

> unsupervised autopilot

They are running a fleet of taxis around the Bay Area. It's kind of scary because they aren't that safe, given the lack of LIDAR. But they are doing it anyway.

He seems to suggest that the future is Cybercabs and Optimus.

But if Optimus ends up with a HW3 problem (current manufactured Optimus bots aren't autonomus yet because the software isn't finished) he'll have a pile of Cybertrucks and early-model Optimus units rotting in a field.

Personally, I just don't see it. If he merges Tesla and SpaceX it won't really be about cars or vehicle autonomy.

Their current stock valuation can't ride this uncertainty forever. At some point he has to have new products that work, no caveats.

He'll just fold Tesla into SpaceX to cover up the ashes.

> It's hard to see where Tesla goes from here as a company.

Probably will get acquired by SpaceX to hide the poor financials

Also, the truck was ugly, awkward, and not good at being a truck.

Not sure why you didn't mention Elon Musk zeig heiling at the inauguration he helped buy which led to a mass boycott.

Elon resigning from Tesla and just letting it run as a reasonable car company making just regular incremental quality and price and new model improvements on normal vehicles people want to drive could be the best thing for the company. The Model 3 is a huge success. That they didn't follow that up with just a regular pickup truck in a similar niche, and instead got distracted by this cybertruck nonsense is an indictment of Musk's poor leadership at this point.

They should just be the Toyota of EVs -- mass produce quality vehicles people want to drive -- instead he's trying to be Tony Stark and keep pumping it as a meme stock.

Tesla remains excellent at engineering and manufacturing. They need not seek the exotic.

He's a liability to that company, not an asset, at this point. And his name has become a brand liability.

Elon's honestly their biggest problem. Can't focus on finishing one thing to save his life and alienated the shit out of the European market with his fascist beliefs.

I feel so much anger seeing these on the road.

A bad design that costs too much, the only people who bought these were ideologues committed to the vision of a man responsible for millions of unnecessary deaths, the gutting of the American state, and some of the most destructive politics of hate in living memory.

I celebrate their passing.

As a pedestrian I certainly don’t enjoy being around them, or any of the absurdly oversized American trucks.

I get that.

I'm not an Elon fan in the least, but it does feel like most cars are designed by committee and converge on a few well-defined shapes and segments. And they sell a ton of them, so sure, of course.

But there's certainly some charm when you see a weirdmobile that doesn't conform and somehow got by the bean counters and into existence. The MINI Clubvan, for people who needed something compact and cargo-focused. The Cadillac CTS-V wagon, for people who wanted to haul ass ... and the family. The Toyota MR2, which felt like Toyota engineers decided "let's take these Corolla parts and build them in the shape of a Ferrari".

With the high costs of certifying a new car for sale it seems like we see fewer and fewer of these oddballs, and that feels like a shame.

So even though I'd never personally consider driving a poorly rendered dumpster from a 1980s video game, perhaps the world is a bit more interesting due to its existence.

I agree. I was personally getting really sad on how all design appeared to be converging on one 'allowed' shape without considering any other possible -- ah ha - angles. I posted on this before, but I will repeat it here, because it is relevant.

Those cars did have uses, but those uses revolved around drawing attention ( think advertising ). Whenever I saw one in my neck of the woods, they were selling something.

> Lastly, having the cyber truck drag race a Porsche 911, while towing a Porsche 911 (and win) has to be one of the best marketing stunts of all time.

I suppose, if you don't really like cars much, this was interesting. No one debates the ability for EVs to have absurd 0-60, 0-100 times, but there's almost no overlap between why you'd buy a Cybertruck versus a 911 besides status symbol, which gets back to... maybe it's neat, if you don't really care about cars much.

Agreed. Even if the design is polarizing, has quality issues, whatever about elon and politics, it is refreshing to see something different and distinctive on the road in a sea of blobby SUVs and extended cab trucks.

Can we just make the world a better place by bringing back dopey, happy cars like the Cube?

I want an electric El Camino.

It can be, if you let it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxus_T90 (EV version)

Yet again I consider the disparities between the US market, as described by commentors, and the UK market. Cybertrucks never made it to road legality here, and would probably have required an HGV license (if the maximum manufacturer permitted vehicle+load weight is over 3500kg).

The US style pickup is pretty rare. There are some Ford Ranger/Raptors, which look comically large but are apparently smaller than the common F150 (??). People who need a truck bed get a Ford Transit or similar with the bed variant.

Agricultural use cases are handled with actual tractors (who can use the cheaper "red" diesel!)

Could be: https://www.slate.auto/en

Sort of glad I wasn't tempted to buy a Tesla yute.

EV trucks sound good but you can't haul anything heavy or your range plumments. Unless the battery is huge but that is weight. A truck that can't haul is just for show.

Even gasoline trucks are stupid no low end torque, you need to rev it. I had a 6 cylinder Cummins diesel and at 500rpm idle on a hill it could move the 10,000 pound truck up the hill.

Edge Trucks starting next year

I think about this a lot

When the Cybertruck was first announced, Musk was still the darling of the left and progressive wealthy. It was daring and different and cool, and it was explicitly meant to be an experiment in making cars differently.

By the time of its delayed release, Musk had become deeply unpopular with many of that original coalition of fans and buyers, the truck was more expensive than originally promised, his new ‘base’ probably couldn’t afford to buy many of them, and it was structurally a fairly normal car underneath the steel panels. It also suffered plenty of embarrassing issues, which people were of course gleeful to publicise.

It could have been a cool funky status symbol, but Musk screwed it all up.

The design isn't what led to its demise, the $80K-100K sticker price did.

I think a lot of the reason most cars look the same is they all have to pass similar pedestrian crash standards. Once you account for all of that, the basic shape of the vehicle is set and there is only so much unique styling you can attach.

People don't just hate it because it looks different. They hate it because it's ugly, unreliable, and a symbol of the modern idolatry of the billionaire class.

There’s a school of thought that anything is better than blandly conformative design. In that school, the Cybertruck counts as progress.

To me, it’s more like answering a complaint about the blandness of pop music with electric bagpipes and nails on chalkboard: if you can’t be different and good, maybe don’t try so hard to be different.

The steel exoskeleton idea didn't survive to production. The production truck has a mix of aluminum castings and welded steel unibody, with the stainless panels just acting as the skin. Maybe they bring some structural rigidity, but not like the origami plan that was originally discussed.

The end result is a vehicle with all of the costs of a normal unibody design plus the costs of dealing with cutting, folding, and attaching thick sheets of stainless steel.

It never delivered the promised $40k starting price or the promised 500 mile top spec range either.

Painted piece of plastic gonna be cheaper than sheet of stainless steel. Stainless is significantly more expensive than typical materials used on car, which would be normal steel or plastic depending on panel.

Also painting IN THE FACTORY isn't expensive. Re-painting the part on repair is because of all of the prep work required (take apart, clean, color match etc).

Might be break-even, but I doubt it would be cheaper

"It will be cheaper" is a perspective of ignorant "smart guy" that thinks because he got successful in one thing that they can weight in on industry processes they have no idea about

Speaking out of my ass here, but I would not be surprised if it's much cheaper to paint cheap stamped steel, compared to using more expensive stainless steel that's treated to remove all surface marring/scarring from the stamping process. Those panels don't come out all brushed from the metal presses...

I don't think the poor sales is primarily due to the cost - it's just a design with limited appeal.

A folded stainless exoskeleton without paint has the potential to make low volume car manufacturing much cheaper.

A press brake is generic and cheap. Molds for presses are cheap if the cost can be spread over many vehicles, but are expensive for low volume manufacturing.

Paint shops are similar. They're not expensive if you're running a lot of cars in the same color through it, but at low volumes with custom colors they are fabulously expensive.

Of course the final production Cybertruck didn't use the exoskeleton design so it was the worst of both worlds, but it does feel like the original design wasn't expected to sell well and was designed for low volume manufacturing.

This idea was never going to work out. In my opinion Slate have got a far more sensible approach with their replaceable body panels.

I live in the UK so I'll likely never be able to get one, but I'd love a car I can just buy new panels for and wrap them with minimal tools.

Same. Initially I was optimistic about the Cybertruck because I though “flat metal panels and no paint is going to make both manufacturing and repairs so much easier and cheaper”.

I think they are mostly not doing paint going forward. CyberCab also doesn't use paint, but uses cheaper materials than stainless steel.

That original process was what should have led to lower prices. Instead, they couldn't do it and had to resort to gluing steel panels onto a body-on-frame design which is much more expensive. They still managed to keep it just as hideous, so kudos there I guess.

I doubt that replacing painted regular steel with fancy stainless steel is going to be cheap. Paint is expensive, but so is stainless steel. I also can't imagine the "origami" technique to be cheaper than stamping, the reason they suggested that is because their fancy stainless steel can't be stamped. And in the end, Tesla couldn't even do it, so they glued the parts on...

I don't know any item where the unpainted stainless steel version is cheaper than the painted steel version, thinking about kitchen appliances for instance. For cars, the most famous car with a stainless steel body is the DeLorean DMC-12, which was notoriously expensive, even without the time circuits.

In that way the Slate pickup seems to be the truck Cybertruck promised to be

> originally they were talking about

Elon talks about a lot of things. Consider if you might be part of the media ecosystem that enables that strategy.

They were also talking about how it could become a boat. All the hype in the world eventually has to meet reality.

Elon promised a lot but delivered almost nothing when it comes to the Cybertruck.

> And originally they were talking about basically building it like origami from a sheet of steel.

It turns out that sitting in your office wearing an adult nappy and snorting cat sedative until your bladder no longer functions might give you a lot of quite "creative" thinking, but it doesn't make you an engineer.

At some point Elon has to climb out of the K-hole and realise that these things are better left to proper engineers.

The original wasn't what shipped. From what I read the cheaper easier process wasn't, which isn't unusual.

It's also an ugly-ass car. If it had turned out to be super-reliable and cheap and "hackable" that would make up for it, even earn its strange look a cult following, but no it just ended up as an overpriced weird ugly-ass car.

While I will happily admit, the initial Multipla looks awful both inside and out to my sensibilities, I have to defend it vs the Cybertruck. Purely from the practicality standpoint, it was ingenious, having three seats front and back while being small, light and cheap solved a real need and I do still see quite a few, especially compared to other Fiats from that time, because of it. It also has what I feel is the most impactful facelift of any vehicle ever.

Had the Cybertruck brought forward the manufacturing innovations that were alleged to cause the weirdness in its design, I could draw the comparison with the Multipla, but as it stands, it has all the visual appeal of one, with none of the reasons for it. Can't comment on the Pontiac, have never seen one outside Breaking Bad.

Wow, its real! I just looked it up on iPhone.

Setting your experience aside, my national transport agency in Denmark recently approved Tesla full self driving because the data confirmed that it’s safer than the average driver. I think it’s both true that these cars can fault, and that they’re safer on average than humans. To be clear, Denmark is not alone. Many European countries have approved it for the same reason, and many more are evaluating. Holland is the toughest to pass, and they passed.

Yeah same. It was too strange looking for me and Elon’s turn to the far right kind of ruined Tesla for me. I ended up getting a F-150 lightning instead and it’s been a great experience. Unfortunately they stopped making those too.

> I think there is just too much software between gas pedal and the machinery of the car.

There's a shit ton of software between the gas pedal and the machinery of just about every car on the road today whether that be an ICE, hybrid, or EV. We're a long ways away from the go-go pedal directly pulling a cable opening the throttle plate.

I think the cybertruck appeals to a very narrow market. It's too expensive for most people who just want a big vehicle to get groceries and run kids to around, and doesn't really have any qualities that make it useful for commercial use, outside of being a rolling billboard. Unless it just really appeals to you and you have cash to burn, I don't know why you'd buy a cybertruck over a Ram/Ford/GM. A RAM 1500 w/ etorque costs half a cyber truck and gets decent fuel mileage... If you need a work truck a RAM 3500 is cheaper and will reliably haul 30-40k loads 12 hours a day and the warranty isn't void the second your tires touch dirt.

The Slate and Fathom are going to sell like hotcakes in the US.

I don't think this is a failure of electric trucks, it's a failure of this specific design.

Trucks are a status symbol in the USA. EVs were becoming acceptable in the mainstram, hence the initial surge in sales, but that has cooled off since 2024. Now very few outside of the big tech cities are spending money on EVs. Hence the fate of the electric F-150 as well.

That's electric semi trucks. The market for pickup trucks in general in China would be pretty small.

Cybertruck is only available in countries that don't want EVs.

The Cybertruck is not very good at being a truck, but it is very good at being a social signifier.

This isn't about the idea of electric trucks.

This is specifically about the Tesla Cybertruck, which has been shown to be fairly shoddy in construction AND is tied to a very, very divisive figure.

Because cybertruck is a bad truck.

Not every swing is a home run. You can win with a few home runs or a lot of singles.

The only guaranteed way to lose is if you stop swinging. And Tesla has stopped swinging. They haven't revealed a mass market consumer vehicle since 2019.

There is some incredible technology in the Cybercab that allows them to be built cheaply in high volume. Instead Ford looks like they are going to be the first Western consumer vehicle out of the gate with the unboxed production method with their Ford Fathom. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese are ahead here too.

Agreed, I love to see long shots even if they don't land, and in this case the price/performance fundamentals were likely the biggest problem. The "limited TAM for a bold stand-out design" was probably another, but Elon also didn't do any favors by vigorously adopting the opposite politics of his customers at the same time he was trying to launch a bold/iconic design.

Was the unusual design a "swing at the fences" or was it just a vanity project?

I disagree. Teslas used to be nice designs and pleasant to see on the street. Cybertruck and Cybercab designs are an affront. Intentionally ugly. I’m glad we don’t see a lot of trucks on the street, and I despair at the thought of millions of Cybercabs about.

The 3/Y and the screens had lots of design and product innovations. Iterating on those lines would’ve been quite nice.

For better "swing for the fences", have a look at Renault.

It's not admirable to "swing for the fences" if you're holding the bat upside-down

This is the world that the Supreme Court dreamed up for us in their Citizen's United ruling. Now that money is equivalent to speech, we all have to carefully weigh if our purchases will be used against us in our political system.

To anyone who is/was a crusader against cancel culture, recognize the source of it. Become a crusader against Citizen's United instead. It would be a much more productive coalition.

Yeah I find myself in the same boat. I don't know if it's a thing with just Bay area tech folks or what.

(btw dope earthbound reference in your username if that's what it is)

Try leaving your bubble sometime, and live somewhere where people generally have good lives and don’t care about politics. Orange County, for me. Lots of teslas and cybertrucks everywhere, mostly owned by first generation immigrants who don’t care about the political noise, just want a practical electric car.

>Weeks ago, he used Starlink for political retribution against Ukraine. He’s unelected, unaccountable and has repeatedly and brazenly tried to undermine US democracy and insert himself in international affairs.

You are deeply, utterly misinformed and loudly ignorant.

Ukraine uses StarShield, which is owned/operated by the USGov. Starlink is a civilian service not for military use.

If you can't be bothered to perform a simple google search to educate yourself about basic matters such as this in a few seconds, why should anyone listen to any of your other (ridiculous) points?

We know. A lot of people want him dead. Let's talk about the car instead.

> But you can't buy a new Hilux or equivalent in the US

A Tacoma is basically the US model of the Hilux.

https://www.slate.auto/ ?

Like most things it came down to price most of all. Cars are way too expensive in North America.

My kid loves these things too and I have to keep the eye-rolling to myself.

Future collectible market will be willing to pay good money for these! Big future nostalgia factor amongst 3-9 yos.

Tons of people wanted (and still want) a CyberTruck, but at something like a $40k price point.

Those people are just as loud as others, but never actually buy, because a $40k CyberTruck never existed.

Small group of enthusiasts?

Tesla took over 2 million preorders for the Cybertruck before they closed the program due to high demand.

That would have been antithetical to his existence.

I’m sure we can trust a sharp business man like Musk to learn from his mistakes and come up with better ideas

Btw have you seen the roadster??

It's a little extreme to want to deny Elon a driver's license over his looks...

They have also renamed the 'Full Auto Driving' feature to 'Driving Assist'.

Literally nothing Tesla promised is coming true.

This isn’t news to anyone following the business. I’m pretty sure it was announced months ago that model X and Cybertruck (and maybe Model S too) were being discontinued.

And Model 3 and Y have always been 95%+ of the cars Tesla delivered.

*flying car shaped air tank and thrusters

What government money do you think Tesla gets? Consumer tax credits went away a long time ago, and that benefit went to customers, not Tesla.

Because vehicles are a compromise. A truck can do everything a sedan can. A sedan cannot do everything a truck can. A flatbed truck can do more than a smaller truck - but it also is bigger and not easy to drive because of the size. The costs to own extra vehicles is very high and so people won't own different a vehicle for each use (renting is not a good answer - too often I've gone to rent something and it was sold out. Also most rentals have restrictions on use)

> To me trucks are the most useless type of vehicle apart from niche utilitarian cases in farming or construction. Super heavy, gas guzzling, open bed, compromised handling, pedestrian crushing death machine. If you want big family hauler, grocery getter: mini-vans, wagons.

Minivans and trucks get similar fuel mileage. For the average family there are not enough kids to need a minivan.

> If you are in trades: van, box truck or flatbed box truck (where bed is useful shape and size, and all sides can be removed if needed).

Obviously you are not in the trades and don't know anyone in them. I've heard plenty of people in the trades debate the merits of truck vs van. They are compromises and there is no clear winner.

> you don't need 3 tonne vehicle with bajillion horsepower as a daily, because you may need to pull a trailer with your inflatable dinghy once in a two years.

If I need to tow something even once every two years then I need to own a truck. I've tried to rent a truck to tow something - turns out most rental contracts don't allow towing. There are exceptions, but the cost is so high, and finding a place to rent is so inconvenient that I will just own my own truck instead - it is worth it.

I wasn't pro truck until I lived on an island with limited infrastructure. Once you need to take care of some of your own infra, a truck is a great tool, beating your full list. That said, a beater truck is generally preferred -- you want reliable, cheap and something that you don't care if it gets banged up.

Not a “truck guy” but I have a cybertruck because it’s the only self-driving electric car that has enough room to carry my family’s stuff when we go to the lake, ocean, camping, etc. My ideal car is a van or large SUV but there aren’t electric self-driving versions of those yet.

Isn’t the Model Y consistently leading the sales charts? I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. The Model 3 is also selling reasonably well.

The original promise wasnt terrible. The reality was!

The Zeekr with sliding doors that Waymo is using seems like a way better concept for a robotaxi. Still fits in a standard parking space but can carry a group at need without being terribly inefficient for a single person.

Without a steering wheel which guarantees it won't be road legal in most countries anytime soon.

A people mover that moves the minimum of people (2)

Outside of certain kinds of construction contractors, I rarely if ever see pickup trucks used for this purpose.

This anecdote might indicate why: We recently had a bunch of work done on our house. The siding crew had a pickup truck, and every morning the very first thing they did was unload the entire contents of the truck into our back yard. The plumbers and electricians would just get the stuff they were actually using and then lock the van.

A ford Transit van fits that requirement much better - much more useful as a utility vehicle, much more space for advertising, much cheaper...

This seems to be about a totally different class of trucks.

> Zero-emission trucks over 12 t ·

(Cybertruck is still in the <3.5t class afaik)

> Zero-emission Class 7–8 trucks

These seem to be the classical cargo carrying trucks, not the pickup trucks.

These aren't pickup trucks.

No mention of Tesla on that page?

Not worth clicking.

No added information, with a thread full of ad hominem attacks

However, if it showed up in a movie as a supposed “cool car” it wouldn’t be taken seriously

The owner has not (yet) been arrested for cocaine trafficking, though.

(The history of John DeLorean is quite the read!)

The DeLorean was yesterday's Tucker Torpedo.