Tesla Cancels Cybertruck for Australia and New Zealand After 7 Years — Deposits Refunded in Full

Tesla Cancels Cybertruck for Australia and New Zealand After 7 Years — Deposits Refunded in Full

Tesla has officially cancelled the Cybertruck for Australia and New Zealand, ending a seven-year wait for reservation holders in both countries. In an email sent on Friday, October 23, the company told customers: "After careful consideration, plans to produce Cybertruck for Australia and New Zealand have been discontinued." Reservations will be cancelled and deposits refunded in full, with the money returned within 30 days once customers confirm their refund details.

The decision closes a saga that began when bookings opened in 2019, with holders paying $150 deposits — tens of thousands of Australians reserved between 2019 and 2021 — even though the order button disappeared from Tesla's Australian website in May 2022. As a consolation, reservation holders who order a new Model 3 or Model Y will receive a complimentary one-year Full Self-Driving (Supervised) subscription, worth about $1,788 at the current $149-a-month price.

The core problem was engineering: Tesla has only ever built the Cybertruck in left-hand drive, while Australia and New Zealand drive on the left and require right-hand-drive cars plus local design-rule certification. Display models toured Australian stores in 2024, but US sales have fallen well short of expectations. Tesla's international Cybertruck launches have stayed in left-hand-drive markets such as South Korea, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, while the truck remains barred in the EU, mainly over pedestrian safety. Australian buyers wanting an electric ute must now look elsewhere, at options such as the BYD Shark 6, the Ford Ranger plug-in hybrid or Toyota's electric HiLux.

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