Tesla scraps Cybertruck plans for down under

The long wait for an electric pickup in the Southern Hemisphere is officially over, and it did not end the way fans hoped.

Tesla has told reservation holders in Australia and New Zealand that it will no longer build the Cybertruck for their markets. Emails went out to customers today, confirming that their orders are void and that all deposits will be refunded within thirty days. For those who want to stay in the brand, Tesla is offering a free one-year subscription to its Full Self-Driving software if they switch their order to a Model 3 or Model Y. This move seems designed to convert a stalled truck order into a sale of a vehicle the company already manufactures for right-hand-drive regions.

The situation has been building for several years. Australians began paying A$150 to reserve the truck in late 2019. By 2022, Tesla quietly closed the reservation page, leaving thousands of people holding deposits for another four years without clear updates. In 2024, the company even brought a truck to the region for a display tour, and Elon Musk suggested to shareholders that certification for other markets might happen the following year. That promised year came and went, and a right-hand-drive version never materialized.

The core issue remains the vehicle's design. The Cybertruck is built exclusively in left-hand drive, which creates a significant barrier for countries like Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Adapting the vehicle for these markets would require re-engineering and meeting local safety certifications, a costly undertaking for a truck that is already facing slower demand in North America.

Recent sales figures support the decision to hold back. Tesla delivered only 8,295 units in its "Other Models" category last quarter, a figure that is now almost entirely composed of Cybertrucks. Estimates suggest this pace is roughly 30,000 units per year, far below the 250,000-unit capacity of its production line. For two markets combined to have only 33 million people, the financial case for a major redesign appears weak.

This cancellation follows a pattern of international launches that have stuck strictly to left-hand-drive regions, such as South Korea and the UAE. The truck remains blocked in the European Union over safety concerns. While this news is a disappointment for the roughly 3% of global reservations that came from Australia, it confirms a growing reality: the Cybertruck is becoming a niche product. Tesla appears focused on selling the existing left-hand-drive inventory to new markets rather than investing in the complex work of adapting it for the right-hand side.

Customers who have waited nearly seven years can now expect their money back, or a different car, depending on how they respond to the offer. The era of the "next year" promise for this specific vehicle in the region has ended.