Tesla notified Cybertruck assembly line workers at its Austin, Texas factory on Monday to take the next three days off. Nevertheless, workers will still receive 8 hours of wages on the originally scheduled working day.
According to an internal memo, Tesla stated, "You do not need to work this Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (December 3-5)
Tesla plans to resume normal operation of the Cybertruck production line on December 6th. Some workers are not affected by this adjustment and will be notified separately.
Tesla has not publicly explained the reason for the temporary adjustment of its production line.
Although Tesla had over 2 million orders for Cybertrucks when it began delivering them last year, there have been signs of reduced demand recently. In April of this year, Tesla shortened the working hours of its Cybertruck production line.
On August 11th of this year, Tesla made a significant adjustment to its Cybertruck ordering strategy, suspending orders for the cheapest rear wheel drive (RWD) version. This version was originally priced at around $61000 and has a range of 250 miles. But according to the latest update on Tesla's official website, its cheapest Cybertruck has been upgraded to an all wheel drive (AWD) version, priced at $99990 with a range of 318 miles.
According to Kelley Blue Book data, Cybertruck sales in the second quarter were 8755 units, compared to 4466 units sold by Ford F-150 Lightning and only 3309 units sold by Rivian R1T. However, for Tesla, this is still a relatively low production electric vehicle, as Tesla delivered a total of 1.8 million cars worldwide last year.
Sam Abuelsamid, Chief Analyst of Transportation and Mobility at Guidehouse Insights, a research firm, stated that "considering higher than expected prices and lower than initially predicted range, there may be issues with the market demand for Cybertrucks. If Tesla really has one million orders, then the current order conversion rate for Cybertruck may be problematic
In late September of this year, Tesla also suspended the production of Cybertruck and Model Y at its Austin Gigafactory in Texas, USA, in order to upgrade the 2nd and 3rd assembly lines.