Tesla is considering building a smaller pickup truck after the Cybertruck has officially become a complete commercial flop.

When first unveiling the Cybertruck and its polarizing design, CEO Elon Musk did mention that if the controversial truck proves unsuccessful, Tesla would build a different, less polarizing one. He even suggested that Tesla already had a plan B ready to go.

The Cybertruck is now officially unsuccessful.

Tesla planned for a production of 250,000 units per year, and Musk said that it could ramp up to 500,000 units a year.

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Yet, the automaker is currently selling the Cybertruck at a rate of about 20,000 units per year. It’s a commercial flop.

The vehicle program is selling at approximately 10% of the installed production capacity.

Despite the failure, Tesla has not yet greenlit a replacement, but Tesla VP of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy, recently discussed the potential of Tesla making a “smaller pickup”:

“We always talked about making a smaller pickup. I think in the future, as more and more of the robotaxi comes into the world, we look at those options and we think about, OK, that kind of service is useful not just for people, but also for goods. [..] We’ve definitely been churning in the design studio about what we might do to serve that need for sure.”

It’s unclear whether Moravy is explicitly referring to a smaller Cybertruck or a smaller pickup designed for cargo.

One thing is clear from the executive comment: Tesla’s priority is “robotaxi”.

Electrek’s Take

This autonomy thing is truly ruining Tesla. They are putting everything through the lens of autonomy, even this comment about making a smaller pickup truck includes “as more of the robotaxi comes into the world”.

The result is that in the last 5 years, Tesla has released a single new vehicle: the Cybertruck.

Tesla should have launched five new vehicle programs during that time, but instead, it focused only on autonomy and failed to deliver it. By now, Tesla should have two cheaper vehicle programs, a real full-size third-row SUV, the next-generation Roadster, and a minivan.

Now, Tesla finds itself having given up its lead in electric vehicles for a fake lead in autonomy, which won’t deliver real value for likely another 5 years, while competition from Waymo, Baidu, and others is pulling ahead.

The Environmental Protection Agency today announced plans to roll back the scientific finding that climate change harms humans, with the intent to also rollback regulations that make cars more efficient. But this will also raise your fuel costs by $.76/gallon, according to the very same people who made today’s announcement.

In an expected-but-still-idiotic move, the Chief Saboteur of the EPA Lee Zeldin announced today that he wants to delete the EPA’s “Endangerment Finding”, the scientific basis for EPA’s regulation of harmful pollution.

The purpose behind this rollback, which so far is only proposed and not finalized (and has already met significant opposition from scientific and health organizations), is so that Zeldin can justify rolling back Biden’s money-saving emissions rules that stand to save over a trillion dollars in fuel and health costs. Zeldin’s move would make cars less efficient, thus increasing the costs to fuel them.

If that rollback sounds like a bad idea, it’s because it is. But Zeldin has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the oil industry, and the reality TV host who placed him into the position he’s in asked for a billion-dollar bribe from oil execs to end the same rules, so they’re duty bound to the fossil fuel companies to harm Americans as long as it helps oil industry profits.

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Zeldin’s announcement of the move today was, expectedly, full of lies (of the sort his employees have had to call him out for). One of those lies is that this move will somehow save you money, despite increasing your fuel usage, and thus increasing your fuel costs (and increasing the price of fuel due to higher demand).

It seems obvious that reducing efficiency will increase costs, but Zeldin is hoping that those who were listening to him will join him in opposite world and ignore everything about how economics works.

Interestingly, though, Zeldin was joined by Chris Wright, a fox… I mean, former oil CEO… who is now heading the henhouse… I mean, Department of Energy.

And this is interesting because Chris Wright’s own government department released its 2025 Annual Energy Outlook in April, and that outlook shows how a repeal of the EPA standards, sought by Zeldin, would increase gasoline prices by 76 cents a gallon in the long term.

The difference is shown clearly in a graph on the Energy Information Administration’s website, which you can also see below. The EIA is part of the DOE.

In this graph, “Reference case” refers to the case where laws and regulations active in December 2024 – namely, Biden’s emissions and fuel economy rules, and California’s similar emissions rules – continue to be implemented into the future. “Alternative Transportation” confusingly refers to a world where those Biden and CARB rules are not in place (despite that the rules would advance the use of less fossil fuels in transport, which is often referred to as “alternative transportation”).

The graph, signed off on by Chris Wright who was on stage today for this announcement, clearly shows that there would be a sharp decline in gasoline prices in a world where those emissions rules remain in place, right around the time they start being implemented (2027). Meanwhile, it shows a sharp rise in gas prices if those emissions rules are eliminated, which is what he and Zeldin announced their intent to do today.

So, by Chris Wright’s own admission, he wants to raise your fuel costs by 76 cents a gallon. Hope you’re ready for the price hike (that is, another one), you’re welcome America.

This is not the first move by the Trump administration to increase your costs in order to satiate their oil donors. In previous news, Sean Duffy, the reality TV contestant posing as head of the Department of Transportation (yes, really, his transportation expertise comes from his appearance on MTV’s Road Rules), announced his intent to raise your fuel costs by $23 billion by rolling back efficiency rules.

But it doesn’t just stop at them, it’s also republicans in Congress who are doing their best to raise your costs. They passed a bill that, among other things (like ballooning the federal deficit, raising your home energy costs by $400 annually, and sending 2 million US jobs to China), makes CAFE rules unenforceable, thus allowing automakers to offer less efficient vehicles that are more costly to fuel.

Today’s rollback is not yet finalized, and will go to a public comment period in the coming months. The plan has already received opposition from the Sierra Club, the Environmental Protection Network, Environmental Defense Fund, and America is All In (a group of mayors, governors and former officials of the EPA and Dept. of Health and Human Services), among others.

And then, even if Zeldin implements the unpopular and bad plan anyway, we’re sure there will be plenty of legal action, causing more waste of everyone’s time and money while we continue to choke on pollution and the oil donors continue to profit, as was the republican party’s goal in the first place.

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It’s not the TT or R8, but Audi is promising its new EV will be “something in between” the two icons. Here’s what we know about the upcoming electric sports car.

Audi is launching a new EV that’s between the TT and R8

Audi is preparing for a drastic brand overhaul as the German sports car maker searches for a spark. According to Audi’s CEO, Gernot Döllner, it will start with a new electric sports car.

Speaking with German media outlet Bild, Döllner called the new EV Audi’s “TT Moment 2.0.” The TT became a design beacon for Audi, serving as an affordable coupe positioned below the R8.

Audi’s boss confirmed that the company will reveal the new EV for the first time in September, ahead of the Munich Motor Show.

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Although it will debut as a concept, Döllner promised, “the car will be built,” saying it will launch two years from now.

Audi is keeping most details secret, but the upcoming electric sports car is expected to be a cornerstone of the luxury brand’s comeback. It’s also likely to arrive with more performance than the outgoing TT with an all-electric powertrain.

It’s “not a TT, not an R8, but something in between,” Döllner explained, adding it will be “a highly emotional sports car.”

As the German sports car maker struggles to keep pace with the industry’s shift to electric, Audi’s CEO warned, “I don’t want to beat around the bush; we have to get back on track now.” The new EV will serve as “an identity builder” as Audi looks to get back in the game.

This is not the first time we’ve heard of Audi planning to launch an electric sports car to serve as a successor to the TT.

Last year,  company spokesperson Daniel Shuster told Autocar that Audi was “taking a blank sheet of paper to see what is the right ‘icon.’” He said developing the new EV was a “huge job” as Audi didn’t want to lose existing customers.”

Like the Q6 e-tron and the electric Macan, which ride on the same PPE platform, you can expect the new sports car to share components with the upcoming Porsche 718 EV.

Will it live up to its name and spark a new identity as Audi’s CEO promises? We will get our first look at Audi’s new electric sports car in a little over a month.

Source: Car and Driver, Bild