Already facing sluggish sales, Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric car company, is experiencing a new bad buzz on the other side of the Atlantic. At issue is a customer’s complaint that he received a vehicle that had been parked in a car park for months before finding a buyer.
Being a Tesla customer these days is a bit daring when you consider the stories of public damage that the vehicles are currently suffering. But that didn’t stop Reza Soltani, a Texas resident who was determined to buy a brand new Cybertruck. When he placed his order at the end of April, he was nevertheless expecting a long wait: when the Cybertruck was launched, you had to wait almost a year before you could collect the vehicle from a Tesla dealer.
But Reza Soltani was surprised to receive a Cybertruck identification number (VIN) just a few hours after placing his order, with confirmation that he could already collect his vehicle in Houston.
A new car that’s already old?
Having taken this information as a pleasant surprise, Reza Soltani set about finding out when the Cybertruck in question was manufactured. To do so, he contacted a Tesla representative directly. That’s when he discovered that the Cybertruck actually left the factory on 8 January 2025. “I asked the question via the app, and someone replied with the exact date. VIN only gives the year,” he explained on the Cybertruck Owners Only Facebook group.
It’s not all good news for the Texan: many Tesla owners have shared bad experiences after getting back a car that had been stored for a long time at Tesla before being sold. Some unhappy customers have even explained that Tesla tried to sell them a vehicle that had been subject to a recall, following the discovery of a bodywork problem on tens of thousands of Cybertrucks last March: part of the roof was liable to come off when the vehicle was travelling at high speed.
Most of the other customers recommended that Reza Soltani refuse delivery. “You can always ask for a more recent model. I’d aim for a vehicle built after March, because that’s when they discovered the bodywork problems,” recommends one of them.
Cybertruck, between falling sales and technical problems
Reza Soltani’s story suggests that Tesla has produced far more Cybertrucks than it has sold. And, according to the Electrek website, this is indeed the case: the company currently has around 2,400 Cybertrucks in stock, parked in the car parks of its gigafactory and at its dealerships. This is problematic, because this type of electric vehicle does not stand up well to prolonged periods of non-use, particularly when it comes to battery wear. And the rejection of the subject by informed consumers could make the situation even worse.
Tesla has been trying to salvage the situation by offering a $10,000 discount on its Cyberrucks since April, in order to sell off stocks. A sad fate for this futuristic vehicle, already condemned to remain on American soil, where it could well become rare sooner than expected.
