Stinkers like Ford’s Edsel and exploding Pinto and General Motors’ ugly Pontiac Aztek crossover SUV are at the top of the lengthy and illustrious list of well-known car industry failures. The firm went bankrupt because to poor sales of John Delorean’s sleek, stainless steel DMC-12, which is famous for its appearance in the “Back to the Future” movies.
Now at the top of that list is Elon Musk’s pet project, the Tesla Cybertruck that can drive a dumpster.
Sales of the 6,600-pound car, which starts at $82,000, have drastically fallen short of Musk’s projections after just over a year on the market. Comedians made fun of it because of its terrible reputation for quality (eight recalls in the last 13 months, the most recent for body panels that fall off) and divisive appearance. Musk’s truck is also the focus of worldwide Tesla demonstrations sparked by the billionaire’s job-slashing DOGE position and MAGA politics, in contrast to previous auto disasters that just looked ridiculous or sold poorly.
Eric Noble, professor at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, and president of the consulting firm CARLAB, said, “It’s right up there with Edsel.” Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen, who created Cybertruck for Musk, is a graduate of the renowned transportation design school at ArtCenter College of Design. “There’s a huge miss and a huge swing.”
Based only on sales, Musk’s Cybertruck is actually performing far worse than Edsel, a brand that has come to represent a catastrophic product failure. When the Edsels first came on the market in 1958, Ford expected to sell 200,000 of them annually, but they only sold 63,000. The brand was abandoned in 1960 after sales fell precipitously in 1959. Musk estimated the Cybertruck may sell up to 250,000 units a year. In 2024, its first full year of sales, Tesla sold just under 40,000 units. Cox Automotive reports that sales were declining in January and February, and there is little indication that volume is increasing this year.
