Tesla will end production of the Cybertruck at its Texas Gigafactory next year.
It’s a uniquely toxic electric vehicle, between its divisive design and Elon Musk’s embrace of you name it. That toxicity certainly contributed to subpar sales, along with a number of recalls.
But the end of the Cybertruck is also another sign that the era of big EVs—particularly big trucks—is waning. That’s great news for pedestrian and biker safety, but also for the battery supply chain at a time when more people need to get behind the electric wheel.
The Cybertruck uses a massive 123-kilowatt-hour battery that clocks in at around 1,600 pounds, or around a quarter of the vehicle’s weight. That’s on par with the battery that powered Ford’s F-150 Lightning, another electric truck that was canceled late last year. (The company also killed a three-row EV in 2024.) Ford’s behemoth batteries ranged from 98 kilowatt-hours up to 131 kilowatt-hours.
Seeing both trucks canceled within a year of each other, while automakers have announced a bevy of smaller EVs and gas-powered autos with electric motors that can extend range, indicates there may be a shift afoot. Ford is planning to launch the Fathom next year. The sub-$30,000 electric pickup is expected to be about the size of the automaker’s compact gas-powered Maverick pickup. Though Ford hasn’t announced the battery sizes available in various trims, it’s a safe bet they won’t be anywhere near the size of the F-150 Lightning’s or Cybertruck’s. The company is also planning to relaunch the Lightning as an extended-range model.
Startup Slate is also launching a tiny electric pickup that can be converted to an SUV, with a bare-bones base model starting below $25,000. It also features a svelte battery and has seen a massive surge in preorders—though, to be fair, so did the Cybertruck, and we saw how that turned out.
Then there’s the Rivian R2, which launched this year. While the SUV isn’t as tiny or cheap as Ford and Slate’s vehicles—its battery has 88 kilowatt-hours of capacity and weighs in at around 1,200 pounds—it’s still smaller than the company’s flagship R1S. Rivian has also teased the R3, an even more-slimmed down SUV, in the coming years.
That’s not to say big EVs are dead. The Kia EV9, for example, is among the top 10 EVs by sales in the US, as is the R1S. There’s also a torrid resale market for the F-150 Lightning. But the rest of the top 10 new EV sales are all crossovers, sedans, or mid-sized SUVs with moderately sized batteries, and a number of newly announced EVs are trending on the smaller side or function as extended-range vehicles.
Building smaller vehicles is, of course, one way to make EVs cheaper. With less weight to propel, you can rely on a smaller battery. And given that the battery pack is the most costly component of an EV, that can in turn help automakers offer more affordable vehicles at a time when the price of so many other consumer goods is skyrocketing. That includes the current crop of EVs: The average transaction price for a new model is now $55,800, according to Cox Automotive.
Going small—or smaller, anyway—also means making the most of a limited battery supply chain. The vast majority of Cybertruck drivers are doing the same thing with their vehicles as Hyundai Ioniq 5 drivers: getting groceries, commuting, and driving kids to soccer games. But a standard-range Ioniq 5 driver is doing it with a battery about half the size.
After President Donald Trump’s administration killed EV incentives last year, sales plummeted. The Iran War and rising gas prices have led to an uptick in interest, though sales still lag behind the global average. (Used hybrid sales have also picked up, reflecting the pain people have been feeling at the pump.) Even with a Democratic-controlled Congress, EV incentives coming back under Trump are about as likely as defense secretary Pete Hegseth putting pronouns in his email signature. But should Democrats take the White House in 2028, marking the culmination of Woke 2.0, support for would-be EV buyers becomes much more likely.
Automakers pivoting to smaller cars could be much better positioned to meet pent-up demand if that happens, while also lowering the risks of delivery delays.
Even Elon’s announcement killing the Cybertruck points to where the market is heading: He claims Tesla is ending production to make room for cranking out more Cybercabs. The battery size in those vehicles? Just 48 kilowatt-hours.
Additional reporting by Aarian Marshall.