Tesla released a barebones, rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck in April of last year, and a new recall inadvertently reveals just how badly it sold. Starting at $71,985 (about $10,000 less than the AWD Cybertruck was at the time), the stripped-out version of Tesla’s controversial pickup was quickly discontinued in September, presumably due to poor sales. Because Tesla doesn’t publicize model-specific sales other than Model 3/Y combined together and “Other Models” lumped in with each other, we didn’t really know how poor those sales were — until now.
The company is issuing a recall on Cybertrucks with the base 18-inch steel wheels, with the issue being stud holes that could lead to wheels falling off. The recall involves just 173 vehicles, which tells us that just 173 rear-drive Cybertrucks were sold. Tesla still sells a new base Cybertruck with those same wheels, but they don’t seem to be affected by this recall.
Not super shocking when you remember that, despite the mere $10,000 discount, the smaller-wheeled, RWD Cybertruck was 2.1 seconds slower to 60 mph than the dual-motor AWD version, officially towed just 7,500 pounds (versus the already dubious 11,000 pounds with AWD), used cloth instead of leather, and removed a bunch of stuff like adaptive air suspension, the power tonneau cover, the underfloor storage compartment, the rear light bar, the passenger screen, eight speakers, active noise cancelation, a bunch of power outlets, the HEPA air filter, as well as $500 from your firstborn child’s college fund for good measure. Not a great deal, to say the least, even considering that last one’s obviously a joke.
‘Change management error’
According to the recall report, “higher severity road perturbations and cornering may strain the stud hole in the wheel rotor, causing cracks to form. If cracking propagates with continued use and strain, the wheel stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub.”
The report also details how Tesla indeed observed the rotor cracking issue during pre-production testing (the studs remained intact, though), and that “durability and performance improvements” were “intended to be incorporated” at the start of production but ultimately “were not incorporated due to a change management error.” Scroll a bit further down in the report, and this is printed in plain English: “On November 25, 2025, production of the affected vehicles stopped due to limited demand of Cybertrucks equipped with 18-inch steel wheels.”
That same sentence appears again under the section about how Tesla corrected the problem in production. Can’t have any more production problems if there’s no production. In any case, if you own one of the 173 Cybertrucks with the tiny, problematic wheels, Tesla will replace all your brake rotors, hubs, and lug nuts free of charge.
