There was great fanfare when deliveries of the Tesla Cybertruck finally began in earnest in late 2023. Influencers and die-hard fans fought for the first trucks off the line, while flippers made out big by reselling in the early days. However, it appears demand may have cooled significantly based on new photos out of Texas.
These photos come to us from Zerin Dube, auto writer and photographer extraordinaire. He regularly finds himself passing Tesla’s delivery center down in Houston, and he’s spotted something odd of late. For some reason, there are a ton of Cybertrucks just sitting around—and the mass seems to be growing at a rapid rate.
We’re not just talking about a parking lot full of trucks that are waiting for eager buyers. The Cybertrucks long ago spilled over onto the surrounding bare land. Some have been sitting long enough that they have grass growing up around the tires. It begs the question—why is Tesla storing its prime stock in this way?
CTRL+C, CTRL+V pic.twitter.com/jlHXDVkYem
— Zerin Dube (@SpeedSportLife) August 11, 2024
Tesla doesn’t have a PR department anymore, but we like to do our due diligence. Thus, we sent a note to their last valid PR email address asking them for comment on the matter anyway. We don’t expect a response, given Elon Musk shut the department down in 2020, so that leaves us to speculate. Absent any standing recall or technical issue with the vehicles, it simply suggests Tesla’s production has outstripped demand.
Zerin’s take is very much along the same lines. “I reckon all those people who ordered aren’t taking delivery when push comes to shove,” says Zerin. He notes that it only cost $100 to get on Tesla’s list until December 2023, when the price jumped to $1000. “How many ordered for the lulz?” he asks.
Tesla recently stopped taking orders for the cheaper, and as-of-yet unreleased $61,000 version with a 250-mile range that’s scheduled to be delivered in 2025. A recent report from Reuters suggests that demand for the more expensive models is waning:
“It shows that demand is a lot less than a million trucks,” Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid told Reuters.
[…]
“They’re sitting on a lot of inventory of two-motor and three-motor trucks right now,” Abuelsamid said.
While models can pile up for various reasons (Ford had to hold a bunch of new F-150s to do quality checks recently), it’s always a bad look for an automaker when a major new model is seen piling up in parking lots. It’s another thing entirely when they’re dumped in great numbers on grass because there simply isn’t anywhere else to put them.
The Cybertruck isn’t the only Tesla model with excess inventory piling up. As can be seen in the video below from July, the parking lot is full of Tesla sedans and SUVs, too. Perhaps it’s simply that Cybertrucks are the easiest to store off pavement. Alternatively, they might just be the most recent vehicles trucked into the already-full parking lot.
Every time I drive by there’s more and more CyberTrucks piling up. Some have grass growing up the tires lol pic.twitter.com/opCZMbXlRZ
— Zerin Dube (@SpeedSportLife) July 16, 2024
Word on the street is that this isn’t just happening in Texas. In June, a user named benzblogger posted footage from Atlanta, Georgia showing huge numbers of Teslas parked by a distribution center at a local mall. As she filmed, a car carrier rolled in hauling four additional Cybertrucks into the lot. Around the same time, Road & Track reported that “dozens” of Cybertrucks had been vandalized in an unattended lot in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. There were no surveillance cameras in the area.
Meanwhile, others have reported similar scenes at other Tesla locations. Twitter users have noted Tesla stock, particularly Cybertrucks, building up in parking lots at Tesla Collision Houston and Tesla League City, both in Texas.
@benzblogger am I wrong? #tesla #cybertruck #EV #gwinnett #ATL #newcars #cartok
♬ Clown, wonder, fairy tale, clown waltz(1326760) – kaedemusics
Tesla’s unsold inventory made the news earlier this year, with some outlets even noting you could spot the cars “from space.” That’s not particularly hard with modern satellite imaging, but the articles all revealed huge amounts of inventory that was seemingly languishing without buyers.
Still, not every Tesla facility is bursting at the seams with excess product. Back in May, Tesla Fremont had cars squeezed into every last bit of available space, with hundreds overflowing onto grassed areas. A drone overflight in early August, however, showed the factory’s lots to be far emptier by comparison. It suggests that the California factory may have slowed output in response to slower sales for the brand.
Tesla’s Fremont factory is one facility that is looking less overstocked in recent months.
The overstock problem isn’t just limited to the US. In Germany, Tesla has rented an entire airport to store overflow stock. In Australia, parking lots at Port Melbourne are overflowing with Teslas that simply aren’t moving. It follows a 44% slump for Tesla’s Australian sales in April.
Automakers generally try to keep production levels fairly close to expected demand, but it’s not a perfect science. Production lines only work in a cost sense if they’re kept running to a certain degree, and there’s a lag in how responsive they can be to market changes. Plus, once a glut of product builds up, it can take time to shift. Dealerships can help in this regard, with astute dealers able to run discount programs and cut deals to move product. Tesla has to do all that by itself, operating out of mall parking lots across the country.
The former German military airbase is overflowing with Teslas of all kinds.
Ultimately, automakers don’t want stock sitting around. Cars that sit don’t make money, they cost money. It’s all the more shocking that Tesla is having this problem with the Cybertruck. It was a heavily-hyped vehicle that was long-awaited by the brand’s diehard fans, with reports of reservations well into the seven-figure range.
After less than a year on sale, we’re seeing Cybertrucks en masse, but not on the road. They’re sitting around outside Tesla distribution centers and on grass verges in Texas, presumably waiting for someone, anyone, to take them home. Back in February, scoring a scalped Cybertruck might have cost you over $240,000. Now it appears there are plenty to spare.
Image credits: Zerin Dube
Top graphic Elon Musk image via YouTube
As these have started to appear in the wild, my wife and daughter have both recoiled/cackled when I pointed them out. I think this will be the response of most people with eyes. And the owners will eventually figure out they’re being cackled at, and hacked-up Cybertrucks will become props in community theatre productions of “Back to the Future” when DeLoreans prove unobtainable.
For a Cybertruck buyer, any attention is good attention
The pictures look like Olympic Village Housing for the 2028 games.
Borrowed line from some gymnasts, FAAFO.
Well, duh…since it’s the ugliest and worst vehicle ever made! cYbErJuNkTrUcK= EV trash
I actually expect that it’s a quality control issue rather than a sales issue. They’ve already had a couple stop sales, there are widely reported reliability problems, and even one in the picture has mismatched panels.
They might be less unsold than they are unsellable.
I was thinking along those same lines as well. For the Cyber, that is.
3s, Ys, Xs and Ss building up is likely because they are getting a but too Musky for their intended audience.
Pretty soon they’re going to have to ask the overstock experts at Stellantis for some advice.
They could name it the Iacocca Memorial Sales Bank!
There were 30 or more on our local dealer’s lot a couple months ago, and they all had stickers well over $100K. One of my friends had a $100 reservation from only last year, and they already told her she could come get a car – but she was counting on one of the $60K versions, not $100K plus……so they gave it a pass.
I’ve only seen one on the road so far – I would be really put off by the variety of color in the panels…….sort of a silver version of the VW multi colored cars?
I’m not really sure why this is such a “shock” to anybody. Who did these car manufacturers think was going to buy all of these $60-$80k vehicles? It’s looks like they’re quickly running out of people willing or able to spend that kind of money on a quickly depreciating asset. I could’ve predicted this 5 years ago. Auto prices are just insane.
A buddy of mine has an allotment for a Cybertruck but hasn’t heard from them about actual delivery. He is thinking of getting a Rivian
That’s crazy..
is this a Tesla issue, or just an overall sign of the industry slowing down, and the least useful cars being the ones that show the first signs.
Looks like Tesla has been pirating software from Cruze.
whistlin diesel did his part, just sayin
One of those was supposed to go to my boss, a big Tesla fan from the early days and still had the free-supercharging for life benefit. He was one of the first in the state to buy an S, then picked up one of top trim levels of the 3 when it first came out.
He was also on the waiting list for a Cybertruck and when it was time to get it… went and traded his 3 in on a 440-mile range Chevy Silverado EV. Decided he had enough of Elon’s, as he put it “blackbelt-level douchbagery”.
This is exactly it; you can buy an electric vehicle from any manufacturer pretty much, and give Sissy Spacex a miss. I hope he goes bust, the massive bell end.
+1 for “Sissy Spacex”
I stole it from someone funnier than me 😉
Since this thing launched, I’ve been genuinely curious how many reservation holders actually took delivery of a Cybertruck. A $100 refundable deposit isn’t the best indicator of whether or not someone will drop real money on a product considerably more expensive than originally promised. Even so, Tesla was claiming a million plus reservations at one point, as an indication of how popular the truck would be once it was finally released. I’m sure they’ll never make those numbers public, but I’m curious. Sometimes I wonder if they’ll even sell a million Cybertrucks at all.
I also predict a pretty dramatic Cybertruck sales drop after 2025 or so, when the new/unique factor wears off, and when Musk has a chance to put his foot in his mouth another couple dozen times or so.
Well at least now you can drive them in Fortnite, that will surely goose sales with the all-important 13 year old car buying demo.
And before you get pissy, yes I am a 43 year old who plays Fortnite all the time.
My friends here that drive Teslas are constantly harassed by coal-rolling imbeciles. Who exactly is going to buy these things now that the CEO is a Trumper?
I’m not sure that’s he’s necessarily a Trumper, more an opportunistic egomaniac with no moral compass. The second Trump started loosing in the polls, Elon started hedging his support. I think he just cares about sucking up to the winner, whoever that may be.
Word. Also, I read an interesting take today that posited that he went fully down the alt right rabbit hole when his trans daughter basically said, ‘fuck you’ and disowned him. Musk’s take being that the ‘woke mind virus’ took his ‘son’ from him. (Insert puke emoji here)
At the end of the day, he’s a man-child who doesn’t believe in taking responsibility for the consequences of his actions, which admittedly aligns much more directly with the modern-day GOP mindset.
Wel, that too, yeah.
He can play both sides against the middle:
GOP: lower taxes, 1st Amendment misunderstander, questionable race/gender/orientation opinions.
Dems: green cars, US high tech, jobs.
What immediately stands out to me is that not one of those very expensive trucks has body panels that are the same color. I get why they don’t, but boy is that not a good look.
This is what you asked for. This is what you wanted.
A fool’s errand in excess, foundationaly demanded by those who demand less waste.
Plus, unabated vandalism to boot. Congrats.
EVs are the answer…
Are you saying that proponents of transitioning from ICE to BEV vehicles demanded the Cybertruck?
I live in this same area and see the Tesla transport trucks daily coming in from the Austin factory. I keep thinking, ‘who are buying these things?’ because I don’t see them on the road in the expected quantities. Then every once in a while I drive past the same giant parking lots referenced in this article and remember, ‘oh, right…’
I mean, we don’t even produce them here, but at one of our malls here in Portland, there is a very obvious Telsa parking lot of unsold cars. They are sitting in the parking area of the former JCPenny if that is not foreboding enough.
If this were a movie I’d call that foreshadowing.
I actually have been seeing more of these in my rural area of Ohio and I thought maybe they were more popular than I hoped they would be. Looks like maybe they aren’t and the examples I’m seeing locally are from some wealthier right wing cranks since they seem to think he’s their shining light lately? I live in Magaville.
I’ll file this under “play stupid games win stupid prizes”, which has many, many Musk entries….
In the words of Nelson Muntz, “Ha-ha.”
Even ignoring everything else that goes on with Tesla, it is a pretty niche vehicle. $100k for an EV “truck” without all the capabilities of a regular truck. “Unique” styling that isn’t going to appeal to everyone.
Probably comparable to the Hummer EVs. Every time I check a GMC dealer for Yukon inventory, I see they have Hummer EVs on the lot. Still $100k. Still not selling apparently. I’d bet most GMC customers with $100k in their budget and wanting a truck are just getting a Sierra Denali and being quite happy with it. 2500 Duramax if you need to tow. Yukon (or Escalade) if you want a SUV.
So Tesla has already saturated the market of gym owners, motivational speakers, energy drink companies, YouTube stars, and generally insufferable toolboxes? That was quick.
Not quick enough.
The market of insufferable toolboxes is apparently quite large.
But the number of insufferable toolboxes that can get approved for a $100K loan is much, much smaller than the total number of insufferable toolboxes. Especially at today’s interest rates.
I hope that we’re in an insufferable toolbox market bubble.
I’ll drink champagne the day that market crashes.
Unfortunately, insufferable toolboxes are like zombies, Jason (Vorhees, not Torchinsky), Michael Meyers, et al.
How long until Tesla joins Stellantis and Nissan dealers in pushing their ability to get “ANYONE” financed. Break out the inflatable dancing guy and the hot dogs over by the service department.
Tesla Model 3s really aren’t expensive cars. Tesla seems to have done well to convince people they are some exotic luxury, when in reality a Model 3 (after tax credit) is not much more than a loaded Civic these days.
ah yeah, a Mitsubishi Eclipse Edition
That may say more about Honda than Tesla – Civics shouldn’t cost $30k
You forgot Weed Bros advertising their dispensaries.