Tesla Gives Up On Cybertruck In Australia. Company Says It Will Refund All Deposits It Has Collected Since 2019 For The Troubled Truck
After nearly seven years of waiting and a deposit that felt more like a promise than a placeholder, Australian Cybertruck reservation holders just got an email that changes everything for them and signals something larger about where Tesla is actually…
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) has told Australian and New Zealand reservation holders that it will no longer build the Cybertruck for either market. Some of those customers have been waiting nearly seven years, since deposits opened in late 2019. The Australian market requires a right-hand-drive version, and with disappointing sales in other regions, Tesla decided to abandon the project.
An Email Ends a Nearly Seven-Year Wait
EV Central reported the email Tesla sent to reservation holders, which said “plans to produce Cybertruck for Australia and New Zealand have been discontinued.” CarExpert, EV Central, Drive, Mashable and New Zealand outlet EVs & Beyond all reported the cancellation on Oct. 23, 2026. Tesla hasn’t said anything publicly beyond the email, and Tesla Australia has made no further comment. CarExpert also reports that the Cybertruck has been removed from the company’s Australian website. According to 4×4 Australia, the decision covers both countries and no local release is planned.
Cybertruck reservations opened in Australia in November 2019, shortly after the truck was revealed. The deposit was $150, per EV Central and CarExpert. In May 2022 the local reservation page was replaced with a “Get updates” button, and reservations never reopened. EV Central reports that tens of thousands of Australians reserved between 2019 and 2021. The outlet describes that number itself, and Tesla has not released a count.
What Tesla Is Offering Reservation Holders
Tesla says it will refund deposits in full. Holders will get a separate email with refund details, and EV Central and 4×4 Australia say the money will be returned within 30 days. Tesla is also offering a free one-year Full Self-Driving (Supervised) subscription to holders who order a new Model 3 or Model Y. 4×4 Australia values that subscription at A$1,788, and CarExpert also reported the offer.
Leading with FSD matches how Tesla now sells its cars. On the Q3 2026 earnings call, Elon Musk said showroom customers “are not asking for 3, Y or Cybertruck. They’re saying, can we get an FSD drive.” Tesla also said it has “over 1.7 million paid customers globally” for FSD.
Why a Right-Hand-Drive Cybertruck Never Added Up
The outlets’ accounts come down to engineering and economics. CarExpert notes that the Cybertruck is built only in left-hand drive and isn’t sold in any right-hand-drive market. 4×4 Australia reports that meeting local rules would have required major engineering changes. EV Central estimates the truck would have cost about A$130,000 before on-road costs, in a large pickup segment that sells about 10,000 vehicles a year. CarExpert adds that Tesla Australia imported a single Cybertruck in 2024.
US Sales Point to a Niche Product
CarExpert also cites estimated US Cybertruck sales of 11,586 from January through September 2026. It doesn’t name the source, and Tesla doesn’t report Cybertruck sales separately, so all of these numbers are estimates. An earlier data point shows the same trend. Cox Automotive data reported by Seeking Alpha on Oct. 13, 2025 put third-quarter 2025 Cybertruck sales at about 5,400, a 63% drop from a year earlier.
Tesla’s other models are selling well in Australia. In its Q3 2026 update filed with the SEC, the company reported record deliveries in Australia and 486,532 vehicles delivered worldwide. It also named battery availability as the main limit on output. On the call, management said Tesla “exited the quarter with our highest backlog in four years.”
What Investors Should Track Next
The Cybertruck is still on sale in the US, and Tesla began delivering it in the UAE in Q1 2026. Dropping two right-hand-drive markets shows where the truck now sits in Tesla’s lineup: a left-hand-drive niche product that isn’t worth a expensive redesign. Tesla is spending its money and battery cells on other priorities. It raised current-year capital spending guidance to approximately $20 billion, and quarterly R&D reached $2.76B as it pushes into autonomy, Optimus and AI compute. Musk also said Tesla is “almost sold out of all megapacks for 2027.”
The next things for investors to watch are whether Tesla delivers the refunds within the promised window, whether it takes the Cybertruck to any other markets, and whether US volumes level off. Each of those will show how much of Tesla’s growth story still depends on new vehicle models versus FSD, robotaxis and energy storage.
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AJ spent 10 years writing about financial markets at The Motley Fool. His coverage centers on technology stocks and the broader macroeconomic trends, from interest rates to geopolitics, that shape where markets are headed next. AJ is drawn to the stories where big-picture economics and individual companies collide.
