Tesla Drops Cybertruck in Australia, Email Says

Tesla has told Australian and New Zealand customers that it will not build the Cybertruck for their markets, nearly seven years after it began taking A$150 deposits for the electric pick-up. “After careful consideration, plans to produce Cybertruck for Australia and New Zealand have been discontinued,” Tesla said in an email to reservation holders on Friday 23 October, according to Drive, which published the message at 12:05 AEDT (02:05 BST).

“As a result, we’re unable to fulfil your reservation and it will be cancelled. You’ll receive a full refund for any payments made,” the email continued, as quoted by Drive. EV Central reported the same wording and said customers will get a separate email to confirm refund details, after which Tesla says the money will be returned within 30 days. Electrek also published the email, which it said holders were sharing on social media and Reddit.

As a “thank you for your early support”, Tesla is offering deposit holders a free year of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) if they order a new Model 3 or Model Y, according to Drive. EV Central put the offer’s value at A$1,788, based on the current A$149 monthly subscription.

In brief

What happened: Tesla emailed Cybertruck reservation holders in Australia and New Zealand on 23 October to say plans to build the truck for both markets “have been discontinued”.
Why it matters: Tesla’s “Other Models” category, which includes the Cybertruck, delivered 8,295 vehicles in the third quarter, down from 15,933 a year earlier.
What’s next: A$150 deposits, taken from late 2019, will be refunded within 30 days of a separate refund email, according to EV Central.

Tesla’s email is the only official word so far

Tesla has not published a statement on the decision. EV Central said “Tesla hasn’t publicly explained the decision beyond the email to customers,” and none of the three outlets quotes a reason beyond “careful consideration”.

The decision ends a long wait. Australians could reserve the truck from late 2019, shortly after its unveiling, and Tesla has previously said tens of thousands did so between 2019 and 2021, EV Central reported. Tesla pulled the local reservation page in May 2022 and replaced it with a “Get Updates” button, but did not automatically refund deposits. In 2023, several Tesla insiders told Drive there were no plans to tool the Texas factory, where the truck is built, for right-hand drive.

Tesla nonetheless kept the idea alive. It imported evaluation trucks from 2024 for a national roadshow, EV Central said. In March 2025 Thom Drew, Tesla’s country director for Australia and New Zealand, told EV Central he was “personally confident” the truck would come; within a month he said: “I am not confident it’s coming, but we are discussing it.” By May 2025, according to EV Central, the local team had been briefed on changes needed under Australian Design Rules, including bumper widths, external lighting and the switch to right-hand drive.

Tesla’s own figures show why a right-hand-drive version was hard to justify

Tesla does not report Cybertruck numbers separately. Its third-quarter production and deliveries release puts the truck in “Other Models”, which delivered 8,295 vehicles and produced 7,004 in the three months to September. The company’s Q3 2026 update shows Other Models deliveries falling from 15,933 a year earlier, so the category has almost halved in a year.

Electrek estimates that 7,000 to 8,000 of the 8,295 were Cybertrucks, saying the category is now almost entirely the truck since Model S and Model X production ended. That is Electrek’s estimate, not a Tesla figure, but it implies a pace of about 30,000 a year. Tesla’s update lists installed Cybertruck capacity in Texas at more than 125,000 a year. Electrek puts the line’s design at 250,000.

The US picture points the same way. Cox Automotive data cited by Drive show 20,237 Cybertrucks sold in the US last year, down from 38,965 in 2024. Before deliveries began, Elon Musk claimed more than one million pre-orders and said production would reach 250,000 in 2025, Drive noted. With the existing line running well below its stated capacity, re-engineering the truck for two right-hand-drive markets would have meant spending to add sales Tesla was not finding at home. The slowdown also sits against a quarter in which Tesla’s net income fell 43% as research spending rose.

Australia is a record market for Tesla, but not for an A$130,000 ute

Tesla’s Q3 update says it achieved “record quarterly deliveries in several markets, including Canada, Australia, Japan and Taiwan”. The Cybertruck was never going to share in that. Price was one obstacle: EV Central said the dual-motor version sells for about US$80,000 in the US, roughly A$130,000 before Australian on-road costs and taxes.

Size of market was another. Drew told EV Central last year that large pick-ups account for about 10,000 sales a year in Australia, and that Tesla would have had to win buyers from large SUVs too. “If that was our only target segment I wouldn’t be advocating for it,” he said at the time. EV Central added that Australia would probably have been the only right-hand-drive market for the truck.

Musk had already pointed at the cost of compliance. In 2024 he told shareholders that meeting “all international requirements” would “make the product, frankly, worse”, Drive reported, and that Tesla would need a “special version” for markets such as China or Europe. The FSD offer makes the commercial logic plain: Tesla is trying to turn reservations for a truck it will not build into orders for cars it already sells in right-hand drive.

The decision adds to a busy year for Tesla that TSN has tracked in its 12-month review of Tesla, alongside a Roadster still in design development and Musk’s talk of merger committees with SpaceX. For Australian and New Zealand holders, the next step is smaller: a second email with refund details, then the money within 30 days.

Sources

Drive, “Tesla Cybertruck not coming to Australia: Official”, Alex Misoyannis, 23 October 2026
EV Central, “Tesla Cybertruck officially axed for Australia: Deposits refunded seven years after orders opened”, Toby Hagon, 23 October 2026
Electrek, “Tesla cancels Cybertruck in Australia and NZ after 7 years of deposits”, Fred Lambert, 23 October 2026
Tesla, “Tesla Third Quarter 2026 Production, Deliveries & Deployments”, 2 October 2026
Tesla, Q3 2026 Update (Form 8-K exhibit 99.1, SEC EDGAR)