Tesla released a barebones, rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck in April of last 12 months, and a brand new recall inadvertently reveals just how badly it sold. Starting at $71,985 (about $10,000 lower than the AWD Cybertruck was on the time), the stripped-out version of Tesla’s controversial pickup was quickly discontinued in September, presumably as a consequence of poor sales. Because Tesla doesn’t publicize model-specific sales aside from Model 3/Y combined together and “Other Models” lumped in with one another, we didn’t really understand how poor those sales were — until now.
The corporate is issuing a recall on Cybertrucks with the bottom 18-inch steel wheels, with the difficulty being stud holes that could lead on to wheels falling off. The recall involves just 173 vehicles, which tells us that just 173 rear-drive Cybertrucks were sold. Tesla still sells a brand new base Cybertruck with those self same wheels, but they aren’t affected by this recall.
Not super shocking while you do not forget that, despite the mere $10,000 discount, the smaller-wheeled, RWD Cybertruck was 2.1 seconds slower to 60 mph than the dual-motor AWD version, officially towed just 7,500 kilos (versus the already dubious 11,000 kilos with AWD), used cloth as an alternative of leather, and removed a bunch of stuff like adaptive air suspension, the ability tonneau cover, the underfloor storage compartment, the rear light bar, the passenger screen, eight speakers, lively noise cancelation, a bunch of power outlets, the HEPA air filter, in addition to $500 out of your firstborn child’s college fund for good measure. Not an incredible deal, to say the least, even considering that last one’s obviously a joke.
‘Change management error’
In accordance with the recall report, “higher severity road perturbations and cornering may strain the stud hole within the wheel rotor, causing cracks to form. If cracking propagates with continued use and strain, the wheel stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub.”
The report also details how Tesla indeed observed the rotor cracking issue during pre-production testing (the studs remained intact, though), and that “durability and performance improvements” were “intended to be incorporated” initially of production but ultimately “weren’t incorporated as a consequence of a change management error.” Scroll a bit further down within the report, and that is printed in plain English: “On November 25, 2025, production of the affected vehicles stopped as a consequence of limited demand of Cybertrucks equipped with 18-inch steel wheels.”
That very same sentence appears again under the section about how Tesla corrected the issue in production. Cannot have any more production problems if there isn’t any production. In any case, in case you own one in all the 173 Cybertrucks with the tiny, problematic wheels, Tesla will replace all of your brake rotors, hubs, and lug nuts freed from charge.
This Article First Appeared At www.jalopnik.com
