Tesla Abandons Cybertruck Production for Australia and New Zealand
The automaker is voiding reservations and refunding deposits for the electric pickup after years of postponement.
By Arjun Patel ·
Tesla has canceled plans to produce and sell the Cybertruck in Australia and New Zealand, effectively ending nearly seven years of customer deposits for the electric pickup. The company began accepting A$150 reservations for the vehicle in November 2019, but has now determined it will not manufacture the truck for these markets.
Confirmation of the decision arrived via email to reservation holders on October 23, 2026, following the company's third-quarter earnings report released the previous day. The correspondence, which customers shared on social platforms, stated that plans to produce the Cybertruck for the region have been discontinued. Consequently, the company cannot fulfill the existing reservations and is processing cancellations.
Tesla confirmed that all payments will be refunded in full within 30 days. To encourage customers to remain with the brand, the automaker is offering a complimentary one-year subscription to FSD (Supervised) for those who choose to reserve a Model 3 or Model Y instead of the canceled pickup.
The discontinuation follows a prolonged period of uncertainty for the Australian market. While Tesla quietly removed the Australian reservation page in May 2022, replacing it with an option to sign up for updates, the company did not notify customers to cancel their orders or refund their money at that time. Buyers who secured a spot in the queue were left to wait for further instructions until this week's notification.
Market data indicates that Australia was a significant potential market for the vehicle. A crowdsourced survey of reservations conducted in 2020 ranked Australia third globally for Cybertruck deposits, behind only the United States and Canada, representing approximately 3% of all reservations. By 2023, crowdsourced tracking data estimated total global Cybertruck reservations at approximately 2 million units.
The primary barrier to entry remains the vehicle's design. The Cybertruck is manufactured exclusively in left-hand drive, whereas Australia and New Zealand require right-hand-drive configurations. Furthermore, the vehicle would require certification under Australian design rules. Developing a right-hand-drive version involves substantial costs that the company appears unwilling to incur given current sales volumes.
The sales figures for the vehicle are insufficient to justify such an investment. In the third quarter of 2026, Tesla delivered 8,295 units in the 'Other Models' category, a grouping that now consists almost entirely of Cybertruck inventory following the end of Model S and Model X production. This delivery rate translates to an annual pace of roughly 30,000 units, a fraction of the production line's 250,000-unit annual capacity.
Tesla has restricted international Cybertruck sales to markets that utilize left-hand-drive vehicles, recently launching deliveries in South Korea and the United Arab Emirates, while opening configurators in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Israel. The vehicle remains unavailable in the European Union, primarily due to pedestrian safety regulations. In contrast to these regions, the automaker has determined that the investment required to adapt the vehicle for right-hand-drive markets does not align with current demand.
Source: Electrek
