I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch.

That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.

I think the dealership monopoly is partly to blame. Dealers get more reoccurring revenue from ICE vehicles, so they are incentivized to not stock EVs and to steer customers away from them. Ford seemed to understand this and attempted a direct sale program for EVs, but they canceled it due to dealer pushback.

https://fordauthority.com/2025/02/ford-ev-inventory-hub-syst...

It's a shame the Lightning got discontinued.

As an EV owner, it sucks that the main thing holding the technology back is misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual practical matters.

People think EVs are cars with tanks of electrons, and run aground the same way you would if you thought horses were cars full of hay. It's a different transport tool that gives the same results, you just have to know how to use it properly.

Judging from how many people seem surprised by my open frunk at the grocery store, saying things like "I had no idea Ford made an electric truck!" I think they could have done more to market it. I sometimes wonder if they really wanted to sell a lot of them.

At the size of Ford, sales numbers can be at a different mark for what is considered successful than others. Not to mention dealer gamesmanship fudges real sales numbers.

As to the Cybertruck it's both interesting and kind of ugly... repairability is another concern/issue as is pure cost...

I'm far more interested in the Slate[1] myself. It's probably closer to what a lot of consumers would want in an electric truck. It really feels like a spiritual successor to the OG Jeep (GP).

  1. https://www.slate.auto/en

It says a lot that spacex had to buy so many trucks just to help the sales numbers. I always thought the ford lightning was a better option for most people anyway. It is too bad they are stopping production when it seems to be the winner.

I've seen headlines / stories giving Toyota grief about not going 'all-in' on BEVs while many other companies did.

It seems that the hybrid-first strategy has been working pretty well for them. (The 2026 RAV4s are hybrid-only with no ICE-only options, AIUI.)

It wasn't canceled for poor sales. It was canceled because it was too expensive to produce, and would not fund all their other EV/battery projects. They found a better road to profitability in that front.

It seems China has won the race for EV dominance in battery technology and manufacturing. Probably not much the U.S. can do to catch up. From the insane oil needs of the U.S. Military to the gasoline needed for a functioning economy and transportation, China will be light years ahead in every category which will have huge implications for U.S. National Security.

Maybe they can sell them at the announced prices instead of the inflated ones. Used is selling around $40k with 20-40,000 miles.

New started at 40k, went to 60k for sale, pre-order fulfillment fell off a cliff so it sunk to 56k, and settled around 50k.

2022: 15,617 sold

2023: 24,165

2024: 33,510

2025: “Around 27,300 units sold in the U.S”

$4k-$6k per battery module replacement. Full pack $25k-$50k.

Unless they come right back with a comparable implementation with a maverick/ranger type form factor, Ford is absolutely shot itself in the foot canceling the lightning. I’ve been Evie only for five years and have driven both the electric Silverado and the lightning. I bought the lightning. It’s fantastic. They are absolute idiots for discontinuing it.

I wanted an F-150 Lightning when it launched. Demand was high enough that I was told I'd have to pay over retail. I did not buy an F-150 Lightning and bought an ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle. The depreciation of electric vehicles has made me appreciate those circumstances more and more.

The Cybertruck failed to sell because it is stupendously ugly. All other (technical) reasons are and were manufactured for political purposes. We're too itchy to stop picking at it, so we blame everything else we see and hear as an add-on reason, but really it was how it looked. Ford didn't cancel the electric pickup, they did even more research and decided the upcoming EREV F150 will eventually eat it's mother, so it is better to stop now.

imho, CT is horribly looking car with absolute disregard to any aesthetics. everything else is secondary. it has vibes of Aztec. one of the worst selling car ever.

This is a case study in the failure of product market fit.

There is tons of room for a low cost, high quality small electric or hybrid pickup in today’s market.

Ford Maverick sales have been exceptionally strong, setting records in 2025 with 155,051 units sold in the US of A, up almost a fifth from last year.

Tesla needs to make a product that people want, and continuing to try to sell one they don’t want just won’t work. Why not pivot and build the truck people are asking for? Otherwise, this program will fail.

I find it funny that car discussions here are so much busier than computer discussions. I wonder if over there at the mechanics forum they spend as much time discussing their laptops and ignoring the drills and screwdrivers

I see many many F-150 lightnings in Canada (Quebec at least) used by construction people. Are there any country or more detailed stats on where F-150s were sold?

> Tesla is actively trying to hide its Cybertruck sales performance.

Have they tried cladding it in flat, steel panels, to get it off everyone's radar?

Be it as it may, its aesthetics are so distinct it isn't for everybody. Also a big part of the target audience expecting to buy an utility vehicle have cheaper, proven and more practical alternatives. I guess the fact its not road legal in the EU doesn't help either whilst other Tesla models are quite popular there.

Why was it so ugly? The front lightbars execution looked cheap and toy-like. Expecting awesome designs for future Ford electric trucks lets go!

Ford swapping pure EV for generator backed EV seems quite sensible. There's some youtube saying such vehicles have been a hit in China https://youtu.be/rTT5Wq49Ss4?t=286

Just before its release there was some press about a few high ups at Tesla who urged Elon to make a “traditional” looking pickup alongside the cyber truck in case it was a flip, but Elon shut them down hard.

I’d be really interested to know if they’re going to do that.

The tech is incredible and will filter into all vehicles in a decade or so (48v, Ethernet instead of CAN, etc)

I love my EV, but for anything that needs the range they should have a super-efficient gas or diesel engine that can charge the batteries? It could be a much less complex engine.

That said, they big car makers only chased the government incentives, which was a great reason to have them.

Electric everything is the future. It is obvious (e.g. heat pumps, EVs).

For people discussing about truck sizes, here is a good web sites that highlight the history of trucks and how they the cab size and bed size did a 180 [0].

[0] https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history

I've owned a few F-150s over the last 20is years. It has the best fold up seats of any truck - entire back cabin floor is flat which is great for my dogs.

I rented a lightning on Turo and it was amazing - planned on getting one as my next truck. I would drive a CT depending on price but they just draw too much attention.

Absolute sales numbers are not the determinant of whether or not a product is sustainable. It's unit profitability. Ford was spending 17k per pickup on the battery alone. Larger sales flow can improve efficiency and unit economics but so can savvy engineering

I thought the F-150 was cancelled because their aluminum supply caught fire?

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a69147125/ford-f-150-light...

I do not understand why we haven’t seen someone take a cybertruck and drop a new body on top. I see “put a model 3 into x” on YouTube all the time.

I would love to buy a cybertruck chassis with a VW bus or minivan on top (current political issues of Tesla aside).

F-150 Lightning is better vehicle than Cybertruck - however Ford is a political company (not like Musk) as in the fortunes of Ford lie to an extent with politicians, unions etc

so hopefully ford can turn the F-150 into an Extended Range Electrical Vehicle

I'm as much of a Tesla Fan Boy that you can be but I have to say, the F-150 seems like a darn good vehicle and it's sad they're killing it. I especially like the V2X features.

I keep looking for good deals on a R1T, CT, or Lightning in the used market. To be fair they’ve dipped but not enough to make an amazing deal.

Until you solve the tow range problem of electric trucks, it’s going to be hard to replace ICE-based vehicles.

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I'm surprised S sales are so low. I would have thought they'd be much better than the cybertruck.

Trucks in general are doomed to decline in sales.

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It also came in almost double the promised price. AWD costs $80K vs $50K as promised. In comparison Model 3 and Model Y pricing is bang on!

The Cybertruck was always the Homer car.

At a normal auto company the board would have fired Elon long ago. It's a shame too, because the right CEO could really turn Tesla around.

Range extended EVs make far more sense. Smaller cheaper batteries but range benefit of a gas tank. 90% of trips are less than 30 miles.

No shit. The CT is ugly to most consumers' sensibilities, and not a "real" truck to most consumers in the truck segment. It only survives as long as it serves Musk's ego. But that's ok -- Tesla is Musk's company and shareholders are happy with that status quo. Who else cares?

The GOP cancelled he Lightning - it's not irony that Trump is touring their plants a week or two after them cancelling the Lightning, while going all in on oil.

What sickened me is our quarry wanted to buy 5 Lightning F150s a few months after they came out and no dealer near me in DFW would even take an order because “the wait list is too long”.

Ford doesn't have a benefactor worth close to 1T usd...

Another truck thread on HN, another 150 bad comments about how trucks are pointless.

So what? They're from different companies with different product lines and economies of scale.

Not surprising. The Cybertruck looks awful and scary, like something out of a nihilistic dystopian scifi film, maybe Mad Max. Hostile.

I mean, Cybertruck sold specially poorly, it's not a hard bar to surpass.

Have you met truck guys? Truck guys call you gay for driving an EV. Yes yes, not all truck guys.

It's sad to see how much of an echo chamber hackernews has become, used to see a a decent number of users engage in critical discussion and exchange perspective, now threads like this are just a gong show of self-reinforcement.

To give some weight to the above, this thread leans way too heavy into EVs being awesome and the main issue is "the people or industry" (misconceptions, misunderstanding, oil industry bad, etc) while backing that with "rest of the world is winning the race" (FOMO).

Here's some counter points to a bunch of claims made in this thread:

1) EVs are not as practical as this thread proposes:

- Battery degradation is still mostly an unsolved issue. 10% within 3 years is common on the latest models as reported by drivers, 15% within 5-7 years is also quite common. LFPs do better but provide considerably less ideal range. 20% degradation is the cliff, where degradation accelerates and lithium ion batteries are considered EOL. For cars that under ideal conditions do 500km - 550km that's not okay over the lifespan of the car where you want good performance in the 8 to 16 year range. In addition, average car on the road in the USA / Europe is at 12 years (many cars far above 12 years old). These batteries will be lucky to make it to 12 years so the average age of EV fleet will end up much lower than ICE (not great)(more disposable) unless you replace the battery. Battery replacements are $10k-$20k and poor warranties (4 years or less). Costs are not coming down for various reasons.

- Actual cold performance (under -10C) is not good, there's no way to resolve this without increasing ideal range

- Range is considerably lower at highway speeds than city driving due to energy dynamics, exactly the opposite of what users need. ICE cars have an advantage here because their power curve is non-linear and power output improves with RPM, RPM goes up with higher speeds in the final gear so efficiency improves for a portion of the curve.

- Charging when living in apartment complexes or in multi-home units is not competitive at all with filling up at a gas tank, time wise or cost (unless subsidized).

- Most people drive few miles daily but long road trips yearly, often to remote places without reasonable charging infra. Versatility of use cases is a core requirement for most car users and EVs are not competitive here.

2) Growth is not as significant and growth rate has significantly slowed down

- EV sales are not at 30%+ of all car sales world wide as someone proposed in this thread claiming China is at 50%. China is at 50% NEV, which stands for new energy vehicle and makes up hybrids, BEV and EREV. EREV + hybrids are 40% of sales in China. That means BEVs are only at 30% of total which is what the rest of the world considers EV. World can't be at 30% EV sales itself as the rest of the world is far behind this sales % compared to China.

- China is pushing higher EVs not due to tech superiority but for energy security for obvious reasons, i.e. a lack of traditional energy independence and rising geopolitical risk

- Subsides have played a huge role in the growth and removal of subsidies will depress sales growth more

3) "rest of the world is winning the race" (FOMO)

- No one has won this race because the tech is not technically sufficiently superior to the currently available. This will change when solid state batteries become common place, but the problems with the tech are hard with a long tail of issues so that's still many years away from being widely rolled out.

This list is not exhaustive. Moving on.

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Cybertruck is a gimmick. And the fad has passed. No wonder they're not selling well.

And they don't age well. Most of the ones around here are starting to look... grimy. Or dingy. After just a couple of years. It's a poor advertisement for itself.

And, yeah, then there's cultural eye-rolling. It's really the only vehicle I hear people openly mock when they see one... And that's not a Tesla/Elon thing entirely, since people don't have the same reaction to other Tesla vehicles.

I swear, Telsa makes cars for gamers. If you're not in this demographic, it's not for you. Ford, GM, everyone needs to stop emulating Tesla. Practical people do not want this.

Unfortunately other automakers see this as the pinnacle of interior engineering; swoon over this and try to pull a "LETS REMOVE ALL OF THE BUTTONS, ITS WHAT CONSUMERS WANT" maneuver.

All consumers really need/want is an affordable, repairable, minimalistic and simple vehicle. What automakers are shoving down their throats is touch screens, animations, ridiculous LED light displays, etc. Then they wonder why electric sales suck.

Short term Ford thinking again, that’s why they’re losing to Tesla.

I would gladly own a Cybertruck if prices come down.

Approximately 100k for a truck of any type is ridiculous.

I'm sure the usual detractors will be here to whine "Electrek is biased against Tesla!"

To which I would ask: Is it "bias" because they simply report on Tesla frequently? Would it be "less biased" if they ignored Tesla? Obviously Electrek can't simply invent positive press for Tesla to report on.

Putting that aside though. The Cybertruck by all measures has been an abject failure. Its production run was so limited that insurance companies refused to cover it [1] and the NHTSA took something like two years just to crash test the thing due to how few of them there were on the road.

Combine that with 10 fucking recalls for absolutely horrific safety issues [2] and the company making the batteries taking a 99% slash in its $2.8 billion dollar contract [3] the thing is a complete travesty

[1] https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/insurance...

[2] https://www.cnet.com/home/electric-vehicles/every-tesla-cybe...

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-29/tesla-cyb...