Cybertruck fans have 10 days to take advantage of Tesla’s desperation | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

Despite its many critics, CEO Elon Musk calls the Cybertruck the “best vehicle Tesla has ever made.” On Thursday, Feb. 19, he took the drastic measure of slashing the price of the expensive electric pickup, at least for a limited time.

Tesla as a whole has been having demand issues for a while, as falling EV sales in the U.S. and China in general have combined with Elon Musk‘s deteriorating personal brand.

Tesla’s annual revenue declined in 2025 for the first time ever, as deliveries also fell for the second consecutive year. Tesla says it is much more than a car company, and that its future lies in artificial intelligence and autonomous driving.

But as much as Tesla likes to say it is not just a car company, more than 70% of its revenue ($69.5 billion in 2025) comes from automotive sales, which includes leasing, regulatory credits, and vehicle sales.

Service revenue stemming from its vehicles like supercharging, vehicle insurance, and repairs generated another $12.7 billion in revenue. Auto sales already aren’t a high-margin business, and its automotive gross margin (excluding regulatory credits) actually dipped into the red for the first time in 2025, according to Reuters.

Tesla sold about 5,400 Cybertrucks in the third quarter, representing a 62.6% year-over-year drop, according to Cox Automotive data. Tesla typically doesn’t trail its ICE rival Ford in EV sales, but even Ford’s F-150 Lightning EV pickup sold 10,000 units in the same period.

While Tesla does not release official delivery numbers, analysis by external firms, such as Finbold Research, suggests the company has sold just over 16,000 Cybertrucks as of October, European Business Magazine reported. Tesla sold just 20,237 Cybertrucks in 2025, according to Kelley Blue Book numbers, down nearly 50% from the 38,965 it sold in 2024.

This week, Tesla made a move to make the Cybertruck more palatable, even if it’s for a limited time only.

Tesla is offering a limited-time sale on the Cybertruck.

Photo by FREDERIC J&period; BROWN on Getty Images

Tesla slashes Cybertruck price tag for 10 days

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made a number of promises when it comes to everything from Mars, to humanoid robots, to the Cybertruck.

On Thursday, Feb. 19, Musk promised to cut the price of the expensive pickup truck.

On Thursday, Tesla debuted the new dual-motor, all-wheel-drive version of the Cybertruck that offers up to 325 miles of range and starts at $59,990.

With the move, Tesla inches one step closer to the initial promise it made when Elon Musk first began mentioning the Cybertruck.

The vehicle features all of the steer-by-wire, steel paneling that Cybertruck fans know and love, with the main differences being lower towing and payload capacity, smaller wheels, fewer display panels, and a few other downgrades, Sawyer Merritt posted on X (formerly Twitter).

However, while the initial euphoria of the lower-priced model was still sinking in, on Friday morning, Feb. 20, Musk dropped a bombshell: The $59,990 price point was only valid for the next 10 days.

X users were not thrilled with the announcement that the deal was temporary, leaving many to speculate that the company was getting ready to mothball the Cybertruck, as it had the Model S and Model X earlier this year.

Tesla is also lowering the price point for the Cyberbeast, the most advanced version of the pickup, to $99,990 from $114,990, on a seemingly permanent basis. According to Reuters, this discontinues the “luxe package” that included Supervised Full Sell-Driving and free Supercharger network access.

Tesla had added the package only last August when it raised the price of the truck.

Elon Musk first generated buzz in 2017 when he teased a picture of a pickup truck that would eventually be known worldwide as the Cybertruck.

But the most exciting promise made back then was the idea that this powerful behemoth would be affordable, starting at $39,900.

Musk promised that the truck’s electric powertrain could generate enough towing capacity to make the more heavy-duty Ford F-150 blush. The Cybertruck would be “a pickup truck that can carry a pickup truck.”

The vehicle actually debuted with a $60,000 price tag and the vehicle currently has a starting MSRP north of $72,000, according to Car and Driver. It has also been plagued by recall issues ever since.

Tesla’s Cybertruck business shows signs of cracking

Tesla’s latest Cybertruck change comes about three months after the company announced the departure of the man who was responsible for the car since the beginning.

On Nov. 10, Siddhant Awasthi, Tesla’s head of the Cybertruck program, announced he is leaving the company after more than eight years.

Awasthi worked his way up after joining the company straight out of school in 2018. Within two years he became an engineering manager, and within three, he was the technical program manager in charge of the Cybertruck. He was made head of the Cybertruck program in 2022.

At the beginning of 2025, reports emerged that Tesla was scaling down production of the Cybertruck. In a leaked memo, Tesla notified workers that production workers on the Cybertruck assembly line at its Austin Gigafactory would be switching over to Model Y production.

Cox Automotive estimates fewer than 60,000 Cybertruck sales since deliveries began in November 2023.

Last year, it was reported that Tesla was no longer accepting Cybertruck vehicle trade-ins. The company was sitting on about $200 million in Cybertruck inventory as of April, according to the report, with prices falling 55% year over year.

However, according to a Electrek report, Tesla reversed that policy last spring.

Tesla began taking Foundation Series Cybertruck trade-ins, and the offered prices seem to confirm the depreciation reported last month.

Tesla was selling brand-new 2024 Cybertruck AWD Foundation Series for about $100,000 last year. A person with 6,000 miles on the odometer was offered $65,400 for that same vehicle, representing a 34.6% depreciation in less than a year.

According to Kelley Blue Book, pickup trucks generally lose about 20% of their value in the first year of ownership, with the rate slowing down to 8% to 12% a year after that.

The cheapest used 2024 AWD Cybertrucks were going for about $75,000 on Autotrader this week.