Tesla Scraps Rear-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck, Likely Due to Low Demand
The automaker pulled the base model from its online configurator, making the $82,235 AWD truck the new entry point.By Jack FitzgeraldPublished: Sep 16, 2025 12:00 PM EDT
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View PhotosGreg Pajo//Car and Driver
- Tesla has canceled the rear-wheel-drive version of the Cybertruck roughly six months after adding it to the lineup.
- The automaker pulled the trim from its online configurator, leaving only the dual-motor all-wheel-drive and tri-motor Cyberbeast models in its wake.
- Along with giving up the front motor, the now-defunct rear-drive Cybertruck missed out on several features that made the price harder to justify.
At this point, it feels safe to say that the Tesla Cybertruck hasn’t been the immediate success the company hoped it would be. According to a report from Electrek, the automaker has already pulled the plug on the rear-drive version of the Cybertruck, which launched just six months ago in April of this year.
The automaker pulled the former base model from its online configurator. With the rear-drive version gone, the Cybertruck lineup now consists of the $82,235 All-Wheel Drive model and the $117,235 Cyberbeast model.
View PhotosGreg Pajo//Car and Driver
While Tesla hasn’t given a reason for dropping the rear-drive Cybertruck, slow sales numbers are likely to blame. In the lead-up to the Cybertruck’s launch, Tesla claimed to have over 1 million reservations, with plans to scale production to between 250,000 and 500,000 units per year. Sales figures in the first year and a half of the Cybertruck’s run have fallen far below those expectations, with Tesla selling roughly 24,000 Cybertrucks in 2024 and 15,000 through the first half of 2025.
Before it was dropped, the rear-drive Cybertruck carried a $72,235 starting price, making it $10,000 less expensive than the all-wheel-drive model. In addition to giving up the front motor, the outgoing rear-drive model came without a tonneau cover, active air suspension, or power outlets for the bed. The base model also shipped with downgraded headlights and fewer features in the cabin.
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From: Car and Driver
Associate News Editor
Jack Fitzgerald’s love for cars stems from his as yet unshakable addiction to Formula 1.
After a brief stint as a detailer for a local dealership group in college, he knew he needed a more permanent way to drive all the new cars he couldn’t afford and decided to pursue a career in auto writing. By hounding his college professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he was able to travel Wisconsin seeking out stories in the auto world before landing his dream job at Car and Driver. His new goal is to delay the inevitable demise of his 2010 Volkswagen Golf.
The National EV Infrastructure Formula Program Lives
Trump administration resumes EV charging station construction, ‘flood of construction’ into next year.By Todd LassaPublished: Sep 15, 2025 11:24 AM EDTSave Article
Justin Sullivan//Getty Images
- After President Donald Trump killed off electric vehicle tax credits in January, many assumed the death of the $5 billion EV charging station program would soon follow.
- Indeed, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced a month later that the program was being frozen.
- However, the program has been revised and stations are still being built under its purview.
It seems reasonable to assume that sometime between his January 20 executive order “Unleashing American Energy”—with its Section 1, “to eliminate the ‘electric vehicle mandate’ and promote true consumer choice”—and the end of EV tax credits after September 30, President Trump would have found a way to kill the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program (NEVI) Congress adopted as part of President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure program in 2022.
Trump’s first-day EO prompted us to ask the Federal Highway Administration via email how many EV charging stations the NEVI program had built up to the point of that ominous executive order.
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In May of the previous year, we reported that the program, then two years old, had yielded just eight chargers across the US.
As of August 27, there are 110 stations (about 500 charging ports) built by NEVI funding, as tracked in the station locater database according to the Federal Highway Administration.
That response came seven months after we asked the question.
“We’re going to see quite a flood of construction,” a person familiar with the program told Autoweek in September. This source believes the program will build a total of 200 stations by the end of the year, for about 1000 individual chargers.UCG//Getty Images
After Trump’s January 20 EO, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in February announced the program was being frozen. In June, a federal judge ruled the Transportation Department had exceeded its authority in putting an end to the congressionally funded program.
That sort of judicial ruling hasn’t meant much elsewhere for the Trump White House. June also was the month when the House approved a $9 billion rescission package demanded by the president that included the high-profile cut of $1.1 billion to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the current fiscal year and for 2026.
Instead of calling on Congress to do the same for NEVI, Trump jump-started NEVI last August 11, with Duffy saying, “if Congress is requiring the federal government to support charging stations, let’s cut the waste and do it right.”
“We’re going to see quite a flood of construction.”
“Support from states that challenged the freeze also played a role in its prompting the restart and updated guidance,” Stephanie Valdez Streaty, industry insights director and a specialist in the EV and electrified vehicle segments for Cox Automotive, told Autoweek.
The NEVI program requires states to supplement the federal funds allocated for EV charging station construction.
Duffy and the FHWA launched a review of the program’s guidance earlier this year to make NEVI more efficient. At the time, according to the FHWA, 84% of the NEVI Formula program funds remained unobligated, which the administration took as a “clear signal” of the program’s failure.Michael M. Santiago//Getty Images
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
“NEVI was established to fund states’ deployment of EV charging infrastructure,” Duffy said, “but Biden and (former Transportation Secretary Pete) Buttigieg added requirements that were difficult to understand and implement.”
The FHWA directs all states to submit updated plans, which once approved, can resume NEVI funding, the agency says.
This new guidance retains the $1 billion-per-year funding of the program through the current year and through 2026.
Six states already have federal approval for their plans to build more EV charging stations in 2026, according to the National Association of State Energy Officials’ (NASEO) EV States Clearinghouse.
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According to NASEO’s EV clearinghouse, 44 states have issued at least one solicitation for federal funds, 38 states have issued awards to build stations, and 16 states have at least one operational station. States have awarded $544 million in funding to complement the $3.3 billion in federal funding allocated from 2022 to 2025.
While EV federal tax credits end September 30 (though the “leasing loophole” allows consumers to take delivery of an EV after that date and still get the tax credit if they make at least their first payment by then) the auto industry is not backing off a fossil fuel-free future.
Urgency over the end of the tax credit from the One Big Beautiful tax and spending bill passed early this summer has given a big boost to the EV segment. General Motors, the number-two EV purveyor in the US, said it sold a record 21,000 Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac EVs in August, while Cox Automotive says strong EV sales from all brands in the US market in July and August will result in full third-quarter sales when September is counted that will easily break the current record of 356,000 sold in the fourth quarter of 2024.
The other significant rule of the “EV mandate” that Trump cut with his January 20 executive order is the Biden administration Environmental Protection Agency standard meant to boost electric vehicle sales to 30%-56% by 2030-32. While EV market share is very likely to be significantly lower than 30% in five years, the extension of the federal charging station program, which addresses a top concern of EV ownership by American consumers, should guarantee continued electric vehicle growth.
Contributing Editor
As a kid growing up in Metro Milwaukee, Todd Lassa impressed childhood friends with his ability to identify cars on the street by year, make, and model. But when American automakers put an end to yearly sheetmetal changes, Lassa turned his attention toward underpowered British sports cars with built-in oil leaks. After a varied early journalism career, he joined Autoweek, then worked in Motor Trend’s and Automobile’s Detroit bureaus, before escaping for Mountain Maryland with his wife, three dogs, three sports cars (only one of them British), and three bicycles. Lassa is founding editor of thehustings.news, which has nothing to do with cars.
