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Tesla has a backup plan for the Cybertruck, but don’t plan on seeing it
Tesla CEO Elon Musk indicated that if the company’s Cybertruck tanks in terms of sales, the electric automaker will design and manufacture a “normal” truck with a typical pickup design, but don’t bank on seeing it.
Tesla unveiled its Cybertruck in November 2019, and its design was met with both support and criticisms from automotive enthusiasts. Nobody had ever seen anything like it before: a stainless steel exoskeleton, wrapped over a futuristic and robust frame, powered by a series of electric motors that would give it impressive and useful capability on and off of the road.
Despite the truck’s unique design, it has accrued a massive amount of pre-orders and has caught the attention of many people around the world. Even though Tesla is prepared to design a new, “normal” pickup for those who would like sustainability while hauling, don’t hold your breath on seeing it.
During a recent interview with Automotive News, Elon Musk stated that Tesla was prepared to deal with slumping sales when the Cybertruck is released in late 2021. There is a possibility that the company’s first pickup will not do well, and Musk said that Tesla would adapt.
“If it turns out nobody wants to buy a weird-looking truck, we’ll build a normal truck, no problem,” the Tesla CEO said on the Daily Drive Podcast. “There’s lots of normal trucks out there that look pretty much the same. You can hardly tell the difference. And sure, we could just do some copycat truck. That’s easy. So that’s our fallback strategy.”
Reports from various media outlets, along with a Cybertruck reservation decoder, had estimated that the company’s pickup was pre-ordered over half a million times by the time February had arrived. The most recent update from the Cybertruck Owner’s Club came in late May, and the site had indicated over 713,000 total pre-orders for the truck so far.
One Cybertruck reservation holder who has pre-ordered two Tri-Motor configurations told Teslarati that the second reservation number indicated they were the 792,302 truck ordered. “On 6/15, I put in my 2nd Cybertruck reservation. According to the Cybertruckownersclub.com reservation decoder, that makes me #792,302.”
Although the prospective number of reservations is somewhat astronomical, that isn’t stopping Tesla from preparing for the worst. A back-up plan will be developed to be safe.
Interestingly enough, one of the first segments of the Cybertruck’s unveiling event last Winter started with a comparison of the currently-available pickup trucks that roam on streets in the United States. All trucks will have a cab and a bed, but the design of pickup trucks across manufacturers remains the same on a relative scale. There is very little individualism between vehicle designs. Without badges, it isn’t easy to decipher which car company is making each truck.
Tesla’s goal with the Cybertruck was to create something the world had never seen before. People hadn’t ever seen any vehicle with this type of design in the modern era, but if any company was going to do it, it was going to be Tesla.
Nikola Motors CEO Trevor Milton also offered Tesla and Musk a design for a “broader market.” Milton indicated in the Tweet from November 22, 2019, that Nikola doesn’t build cars or trucks, but their design would be donated to Tesla “just in case.” Since then, Nikola has developed the Badger, which is expected to enter the EV pickup market in the future.
https://twitter.com/nikolatrevor/status/1197749716580093952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1197749716580093952%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.teslarati.com%2Ftesla-cybertruck-design-elon-musk-tweet-nikola-ceo%2F
Whether Tesla builds a traditional truck design remains to be seen. Judging on the popularity and pre-order estimations of the Cybertruck, Tesla will likely not need to design a new pickup that will appeal to a broader market. Of course, consumers will have to wait and see what happens with the car between now and the initial production runs, because Tesla is constantly changing the Cybertruck’s design to make it the strongest vehicle on the road.
“Things are seeming more apocalyptic these days. Let me tell you, the truck you want in the apocalypse is the Cybertruck,” Musk said.
The Cybertruck’s Dual and Tri-Motor variants will be available in late 2021, with the Single Motor configuration coming in 2022. The truck will be manufactured at Tesla’s new Austin, Texas Gigafactory.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just got pulled into the biggest Weapons Program in U.S. history
SpaceX joins the Golden Dome software group, deepening its role in America’s most expensive defense program.
SpaceX has joined a nine-company group developing the core operating software for the Golden Dome, America’s next-generation missile defense system. According to a Bloomberg report, SpaceX is focused on integrating satellite communications for military operations and is working alongside eight other defense and artificial intelligence companies, including Anduril Industries, Palantir Technologies, and Aalyria Technologies, to build software connecting missile defense capabilities.
The Golden Dome concept dates back to President Trump’s 2024 campaign, and on January 27, 2025, he signed an executive order directing the U.S. Armed Forces to construct the system before the end of his term. The system is planned to employ a constellation of thousands of satellites equipped with interceptors, with data centers in space providing automated control through an AI network.
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, director of the Golden Dome initiative, has described the software layer as a “glue layer” that would enable officers to manage and control radars, sensors, and missile batteries across services. The consortium is aiming to test the platform this summer.
Trump selected a design in May 2025 with a $175 billion price tag, expected to be operational by the end of his term in 2029, though the Congressional Budget Office projected the cost could reach $831 billion over two decades.
The Golden Dome role is only the latest in a string of military wins for SpaceX. As Teslarati reported, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million task order on April 1, 2026 to launch missile tracking satellites for the Space Development Agency, covering two Falcon 9 launches beginning in Q3 2027. That came on top of more than $22 billion in government contracts held by SpaceX as of 2024, per CEO Gwynne Shotwell, spanning NASA resupply missions, classified intelligence satellites through its Starshield program, and military broadband.
The accumulation of defense contracts, now including a seat at the table on the most expensive weapons program in U.S. history, positions SpaceX as the dominant infrastructure provider for American national security in space. With a SpaceX IPO still on the horizon, each new contract adds weight to what is already one of the most consequential companies in aerospace history, raising real questions about how much of America’s defense architecture will depend on a single private operator before it ever trades publicly.
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Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk talks Tesla Roadster’s future
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
SpaceX just got pulled into the biggest Weapons Program in U.S. history
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
