Elon Musk said Friday that Tesla would phase out production of the Cybertruck, the boxy electric pickup he once pitched as the future of his EV maker.

In a post on X, Musk said: “Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production.”

The changes to Cybertruck production come seven years after Musk introduced the vehicle at a splashy, sci-fi-themed event at Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne, California, complete with pyrotechnics and a live demonstration of the truck’s “armor glass,” in which Tesla’s lead designer shattered two Cybertruck windows with a steel ball. Just a month before the launch event, Musk had touted the vehicle as Tesla’s “best product ever” during Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call in 2019.

“This could be totally wrong. I could be totally out to lunch here, but I think the Tesla Cyber Truck is our best product ever. That’s my opinion,” he said at the time.

Yet the Cybertruck, which starts at $92,490, has been popular, but it has struggled to find the mass appeal of other Tesla vehicles like the Model Y and Model 3. Production delays pushed the vehicle’s launch date to 2023 from a previously promised 2021 debut, and production still fell short of the 250,000 to 500,000 Cybertrucks Musk predicted Tesla would eventually produce annually.

Tesla sold 38,965 Cybertrucks in the United States in 2024 and then just 20,237 in 2025, a decline of 48%, according to estimates by Kelley Blue Book. Kelley Blue Book’s parent company, Cox Automotive, estimated that Tesla sold a total of 7,263 Cybertrucks in the first half of this year, which would put the model on track for yet another year-over-year sales decline. Tesla does not break out its Cybertruck sales in its public filings, which makes third-party estimates like these the main publicly available measure of the truck’s demand.

Musk has now pivoted the company’s future prospects to the autonomous Cybercab, which he announced to fanfare at an event in 2024. The first Cybercabs hit roads in Austin, Texas, in September. Tesla also has Robotaxi operations using the Model Y in Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth in Texas, as well as Miami, Orlando, and Tampa in Florida, with plans for more U.S. cities to be included later.

Tesla did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

New ambitions

The shift away from Cybertruck production comes as Tesla seeks to convince investors that autonomous technology can drive growth in the future by surpassing traditional EV sales, which have fallen since President Donald Trump ended the EV tax credit last year. Tesla sells the most EVs of any company in the United States.

The EV maker has positioned its Cybercab, a two-seater without a steering wheel or pedals, as key to its expansion into autonomous transportation and robotics. But the new vehicle also faces hurdles. Federal auto safety regulators opened an investigation in September into whether Tesla properly certified that the Cybercab complies with federal vehicle safety standards. At the end of October, Tesla submitted its answers to questions from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), but requested that its responses remain sealed because they are “confidential business information.” The NHTSA has not yet ruled on Tesla’s confidentiality request, according to Electrek.

In the autonomous robotaxi market, Tesla is entering late. Alphabet’s Waymo already operates in 15 U.S. cities and reportedly provides 500,000 rides per week, according to an X post the company shared earlier this year.

The Cybertruck, for its part, has been hit with 11 recalls since customer deliveries began in November 2023, according to Reuters. Price changes that made the truck significantly more expensive than Musk’s original vision have also stood in the way of mass adoption. Tesla advertised a starting price of $39,900 when it introduced the truck in 2019 — but by the time deliveries began in 2023, the company was advertising a version of the vehicle expected to cost $60,990.

Tesla raised the price of several models of the Cybertruck this month and discontinued orders for the cheapest model, the Dual Motor AWD. That means the cheapest Cybertruck model still available starts at $92,490, up from the $84,990 price the same model reached in August after previous price hikes, according to Electrek. Tesla has previously tried introducing less expensive versions of the Cybertruck to attract buyers: the company launched a rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck in 2025 but pulled it from the lineup months later.

Musk’s Friday post also leaves existing Cybertruck owners in limbo. Tesla has not said how long it will continue selling remaining inventory or supplying replacement parts, though winding down the vehicle’s production does not mean it will end support for existing vehicles.

Musk, for his part, still appeared enthusiastic about the truck on Friday. In response to a user highlighting his Cybertruck announcement as the end of an era, the CEO replied: “True, but the Cybertruck fleet will be around for a long time.” From here, the concrete markers to watch include the NHTSA’s ruling on Tesla’s confidentiality request, the outcome of the Cybercab certification investigation, the pace of Tesla’s Robotaxi expansion into additional U.S. cities, and whether the company specifies how long it will keep selling Cybertruck inventory and supplying parts.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.