It’s been a rough start to 2025 for electric vehicle maker Tesla. The company’s sales have plummeted at home and abroad, in no small part due to CEO Elon Musk’s continued political involvement and advocacy for cuts to social programs.
And while Tesla had touted their Cybertruck as the next big thing in electric vehicles, sales have been moving ahead at a crawl. This has led the automaker to begin offering discount financing in a last-ditch effort to lure more buyers, Electrek reported.
Before its launch, Tesla had said the Cybertruck had a list of early reservations over 1 million names long. Yet they only sold approximately 40,000 in 2024, their first full year in production — less than 10% of Musk’s stated goal of 500,000 units annually.
Now, the company is offering low-interest financing for well-qualified buyers, with 1.99% APR available for a limited time. (The regular rate is 5.84%.) But with sales flagging so far behind what Musk had predicted, many people are doubting whether or not the truck model will ever be profitable.
“I think it’s fairly clear that the Cybertruck is a flop,” wrote the Electrek article’s author, Fred Lambert.
“Good luck ever recovering the R&D costs,” another commenter wrote.
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That said, while the developments are unfortunate for Tesla, they’ll make the Cybertruck more accessible and affordable for any potential buyers who have been looking for a reason to switch to electric and need something with this level of flair to make the leap.
In addition to being unable to drum up enough interest to justify more production, Tesla is struggling just to sell the remainder of its existing stock of Cybertrucks. Electrek had previously revealed the company had been buffing out its “Foundations Series” badges — which had been on the trucks exclusively reserved for early buyers — in order to offload them as regular, cheaper Cybertrucks.
Yet despite consumers’ evolving and complicated relationship with Tesla as a brand, consumer enthusiasm for electric vehicles as a whole is continuing to grow. Cox Automotive reported that Q4 of 2024 set a new record for EV sales in the US, which clocked in at 1.3 million units sold.
More and more automakers are also entering the race, which will give consumers more options at a wider array of price points. And the more people can migrate away from diesel-burning vehicles, the faster we can reduce car-related air pollution and planet-warming emissions — helping ensure a safer future for all.
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