The case
The truck that turns heads deserves a second home.
Tesla's future is autonomous, and we're behind Cybercab. But that future also needs products that inspire people: the truck that turns heads, lights up kids' faces at the window, and made a lot of us fall for Tesla in the first place. That's the reason for all of this.
Tesla is ending Cybertruck production in Texas to make room for Cybercab. We think both can live. Our proposal is how we keep that truck going: Cybercab in Texas, and a second home for the Cybertruck at Giga Shanghai, Tesla's own plant, so it could keep going for the world.
Why it's so good
The truck that turns heads is also, under the skin, a wave of engineering that made a lot of us fall for Tesla in the first place. These are the advances we can stand behind.
- 48-volt architecture. A 48-volt electrical system, so the truck can do more with thinner, lighter wiring than a conventional 12-volt setup.
- Steer-by-wire, with rear steering. There is no mechanical steering shaft. A small turn of the wheel unlocks tight turns, with the rear wheels helping.
- High-voltage powertrain. A high-voltage architecture built for faster charging and slimmer cables. Tesla lists the pack at 700 volts nominal.
- Large, impact-absorbing castings. Big aluminum pieces replace a pile of smaller parts, and they help absorb impacts.
- Etherloop. Tesla's gigabit in-truck network moves data quickly and cuts a lot of the wiring that used to run from end to end.
- A structural battery pack. The pack is part of the body, so it carries the truck as well as powering it. Cybertruck packs use Tesla's 4680 cells.
- Powershare. Bidirectional charging lets the truck power tools, a campsite or a home from the battery it already carries.
- A hard stainless skin. The exoskeleton resists dents and scratches, and it doesn't need paint.
Tesla is already putting some of this engineering to work in the vehicles that follow, including Cybercab and Semi. That's why both can live: Texas can go all-in on the robotaxi, and the truck that proved so much of this can keep inspiring people.
1. What Tesla said
| When | What Elon Musk posted on X | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 6 Nov 2026, 4:30pm AEST | Winding down Cybertruck production at Giga Texas around the middle of next year to make room for Cybercab. | post |
| 6 Nov 2026, 6:57pm AEST | "…the Cybertruck fleet will be around for a long time." | post |
| 7 Nov 2026, 4:10pm AEST | Production continues for "another 8 or 9 months". "There will never be another vehicle like it." | post |
| 8 Nov 2026, 4:12am AEST | The order backlog is far more than Tesla can make before the line is dismantled around June/July next year; an extra shift will be added. | post |
| 8 Nov 2026, 5:39am AEST | The limit is a "very limited number of smart, dedicated people" and a complex production line and supply chain. | post |
| 9 Nov 2026, 5:20pm AEST | Order rate far exceeds production; deposits will be returned for a lot of people; "not a case of Cybertruck being unprofitable". | post |
| 9 Nov 2026, 7:21pm AEST | Building a high-volume factory is the hard part. "Prototypes are trivial by comparison." | post |
Some lines are summarised; exact quotes are in quotation marks.
2. What fans said back
Thousands of people replied to the 9 November post. By our own count we collected about 2,700 posts, around four in ten of the direct replies and a smaller share of the quote posts, including the most-liked replies, random samples and every post we found that mentioned a country or moving production. Several hundred were read one by one. The patterns below are our own reading of that sample, not a poll, and haven't been checked independently.
- Most replies were against ending the Cybertruck. The single biggest response wasn't grief. It was "you can do both".
- The tone was hurt loyalty: owners, reservation holders and long-time supporters asking to be heard.
- Very few people argued against Cybercab itself, only against Cybercab instead of the Cybertruck.
- In what we read, North American owners, reservation holders and fans made up most of the thread. People outside North America who never got the chance to own one were a smaller group. This campaign is for both.
- By our count, only about one in a hundred proposed Shanghai. That's why we're explaining it here.
3. What we're asking Tesla to consider
- Keep the truck that turns heads in the line-up after the Texas line closes.
- Give it a second home at Giga Shanghai, so Texas can go all-in on Cybercab and the truck can keep inspiring people.
- Build it for the world, using Shanghai's export reach.
- Look after the people who waited: as many as possible before the Texas line closes, and the markets that never got the truck if a second home goes ahead.
- Keep the know-how and look after the fleet: parts, service and software for every truck on the road.
4. Why Giga Shanghai
To keep the truck that inspires people going, it needs a home Tesla already built.
- It answers the hardest objection. Building a high-volume factory is the hard part. Shanghai already is one: Tesla's largest vehicle plant, with more than 950,000 Model 3 and Model Y a year of installed capacity (Tesla Q2 2026 Update). That's capacity for the cars it builds today, not empty space, so a Cybertruck line would still be a big new project.
- Tesla has done fast before. Shanghai went from groundbreaking on 7 January 2019 to first deliveries on 30 December 2019 (Reuters).
- It already supplies markets around the world. The plant builds Teslas in huge numbers for left-hand-drive markets and exports globally, including right-hand-drive cars to Australia and New Zealand. More than 107,000 Shanghai-built Teslas had reached Australia by September 2024 (The Driven).
- The quality is Tesla's own praise. Elon has said the cars made there are "not just the most efficient production, but also the highest quality", and that the plant is "the best quality, lowest cost and also low drama."
- It leaves Texas to Cybercab. A Shanghai line wouldn't take floor space or machines from Cybercab in Texas. It would still need room, tooling and some of Tesla's scarce skilled people.
- Right-hand drive would be less of a rebuild, not easy. Steer-by-wire means there's no mechanical steering shaft to reroute, but the wheel, pedals, dash and airbags would still have to move, and no factory right-hand-drive Cybertruck has ever been built. That would be Tesla's call.
Other routes we back
Giga Shanghai is our call, but we back every serious idea that keeps the Cybertruck going alongside Cybercab. Unplugged Performance in Hawthorne, California, has made an open offer to Tesla to take on the Cybertruck line with investor backing, with Cybercab first in line. That's their proposal and Tesla's call, and we're glad to see it. Whatever the route, we ask that right-hand drive is in mind from day one: about a third of the world's people live where traffic keeps left, and in Australia alone Tesla said tens of thousands of people put their names down for a Cybertruck between 2019 and 2021 (EV Central, March 2025).
5. What it will take
A second home would take work, and Tesla hasn't said it plans to build the Cybertruck anywhere else. The stainless tooling and presses exist only in Texas today, the structural pack uses 4680 cells made in Texas (Tesla doesn't make cells in China), a new line would need some of Tesla's scarce skilled people, and some markets would need the truck changed to meet their rules. Our proposal is still simple: Giga Shanghai could keep the truck that turns heads going for the world. All we ask is that Tesla looks before the line comes down.
6. What we're not claiming
- That Tesla plans to build the Cybertruck in Shanghai. It hasn't said so.
- That Shanghai-built cars are sold in the United States today, or that a Shanghai-built truck would automatically meet today's United States rules.
- That a right-hand-drive version will be built for any market, or when.
- Any price, sales figure, safety rating or availability.
- That we speak for Tesla, owners or anyone who replied to Elon.