The 30-Day Deadline: Tesla Ends Seven-Year Wait for Australian Cybertruck Owners
Tesla has voided all Australian and New Zealand Cybertruck reservations, promising full refunds within 30 days after nearly seven years of deposits.
By Jonathan Pierce ·
For nearly seven years, thousands of drivers in Australia and New Zealand have held small deposits for an electric pickup truck that promised to revolutionize the market. That wait officially ended this week when Tesla notified reservation holders that their orders have been cancelled and their funds are being returned.
The news arrived via a short email sent to customers this morning, confirming that the automaker has discontinued plans to produce the Cybertruck for the region. Tesla stated that after careful consideration, it is unable to fulfill these reservations and will process full refunds for any payments made within the next 30 days. To soften the blow, the company is offering a free one-year subscription to its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software to anyone who switches their order to a Model 3 or Model Y.
The cancellation marks the conclusion of a timeline that began in November 2019, when Australians first paid A$150 to reserve the vehicle. For almost a decade, these customers sat on refundable deposits while the production schedule for the right-hand-drive version of the truck remained elusive. The decision comes just one day after Tesla reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2026.
The primary obstacle was technical and financial. The Cybertruck is manufactured exclusively in left-hand drive, a configuration incompatible with the driving norms of Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Japan. Adapting the vehicle for right-hand drive markets would have required significant engineering changes and certification under local design rules, a costly endeavor for a truck that has faced shifting demand in North America.
Market data suggests that the investment was difficult to justify. While Australia was once the third-largest market for reservations behind the US and Canada, representing about 3% of the total, global interest has cooled. By 2023, crowdsourced trackers estimated total reservations at around two million, but the truck’s international rollout has been limited to left-hand-drive regions such as South Korea, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Israel. The European Union remains closed to the vehicle primarily due to pedestrian safety regulations.
Production volumes further underline the niche status of the vehicle. In the third quarter of 2026, Tesla delivered approximately 8,295 units in the 'Other Models' category, a group that now consists almost entirely of Cybertrucks since the Model S and X lines ended production. Analysts estimate Cybertruck sales at between 7,000 and 8,000 units for the quarter, equating to an annual pace of roughly 30,000 vehicles. This is a fraction of the 250,000-unit annual capacity originally planned for the production line, making a dedicated right-hand-drive program for a combined market of 33 million people financially challenging for any CFO to approve.
Tesla had previously signaled a pause in expansion for the region. In May 2022, the company quietly removed the Australian reservation page, replacing it with a generic 'Get updates' button without issuing refunds at the time. Although CEO Elon Musk told shareholders in 2024 that certification for other markets might occur 'sometime next year,' that deadline passed without a right-hand-drive version ever materializing, despite a display tour of the truck in 2024.
The cancellation confirms that the Cybertruck has evolved into a niche, primarily American product. While some reservation holders may have already cancelled their pre-orders due to the increased price and reduced range of the final model compared to the 2019 promise, the formal closure of the order book ends the uncertainty for the remaining customers.
For now, the focus shifts to the refund process. Customers can expect their A$150 deposits to be returned within the mandated 30-day window. Meanwhile, Tesla continues to seek buyers for its existing left-hand-drive inventory in international markets, signaling that further major engineering investments in the pickup truck are unlikely in the near future.
Source: Electrek
