The headline seems like a pun: “The wheels are falling off Tesla’s Cybertruck.” But it surely isn’t a joke. Tesla is recalling 173 Cybertrucks as a result of the wheels can actually fall off whereas the automobile is in movement.
Sure, mates, you might be driving to Costco, take a proper, and off goes one wheel out of your six-figure polygonal truck. Goodbye! Your automobile is now a prop from a Buster Keaton film.
The recall covers Cybertrucks fitted with 18-inch metal wheels, constructed between March 21, 2024, and November 25, 2025. The issue is as easy as it’s alarming and surreal. Tough roads and exhausting cornering can crack the stud holes within the brake rotor, inflicting the wheel stud to separate from the hub.
Tesla acknowledges the separation might trigger lack of automobile management and enhance the chance of a crash. The recall takes the crown of high quality management issues within the historical past of Tesla high quality management and manufacturing issues (see under).
Tesla will substitute the affected wheel hubs and rotors at no cost. Homeowners ought to count on a notification letter within the mail by early July 2026.
An introduced catastrophe
This new recall is an ideal metaphor of the Cybertruck’s historical past. It has been plagued with high quality issues since its very design conception. In its presentation, its “indestructible,” bullet-proof driver door window—in response to Tesla CEO Elon Musk—was destroyed on stage by Musk himself throwing a easy metal ball in opposition to the “armored” glass.
It hasn’t gotten a lot better since. The truck had high quality issues throughout manufacturing, with doors that don’t align and surfaces that aren’t precisely the identical from one unit to the following.
The Cybertruck has been recalled over its accelerator pedal getting caught at full throttle, its windshield wiper failing, its exterior trim flying off at freeway speeds, and its cameras shedding picture whereas shifting into reverse. That’s earlier than attending to those involving the frunk, which may shut on folks’s palms and sever their fingers.
Gross sales flop
The Cybertruck’s gross sales have been in free fall for years now. Again in 2023, Musk informed buyers he anticipated to promote between 250,000 and 500,000 Cybertrucks per year as soon as manufacturing was totally ramped. The Cybertruck launched in late 2023 with over one million folks reportedly having positioned reservations.
It delivered round 38,965 units in 2024, its first full 12 months available on the market—roughly 15% of Musk’s decrease goal. In 2025, gross sales had been cut nearly in half to 20,237 units—the sharpest year-over-year decline of any EV within the U.S. market that 12 months.
And even these numbers are inflated: in response to S&P Global Mobility registration data, Musk’s personal SpaceX alone purchased 1,279 Cybertrucks in This autumn of 2025—18% of all items registered within the U.S. that quarter—with Musk’s different firms, together with xAI, The Boring Firm, and Neuralink, accounting for one more 60 items. Strip out these purchases by associated firms and This autumn registrations would have fallen 51% 12 months over 12 months.
Replace timeline
So, with out additional ado, right here’s our up to date line of Cybertruck issues and recollects:
NOVEMBER 21, 2019
Elon Musk unveils the Cybertruck. He claims its home windows are manufactured from “Armor Glass,” a bulletproof materials that received’t even dent if you hit it, even at shut vary with a metal ball.
Seconds later, two home windows break in a reside demonstration.
Musk claims it should attain prospects in late 2021 beginning at $39,900.
AUGUST 8, 2021
Tesla proclaims it won’t be able to get the Cybertruck out in 2021 because of manufacturing issues. The corporate says it is going to be pushing the date to early 2022.
JANUARY 31, 2022
Musk proclaims that Cybertruck production is delayed again, to late 2022, because of numerous design and manufacturing challenges.
NOVEMBER 1, 2022
Tesla says it won’t be able to satisfy its late 2022 launch window, pushing the discharge as soon as once more to the top of 2023, with “early manufacturing” in mid-2023. “We’re within the closing lap for Cybertruck,” Musk says on a monetary convention name.
JANUARY 24, 2023
In an interview with Fast Company, trade specialists say they doubt that the Cybertruck’s design will permit the corporate to supply it in any important numbers.
Adrian Clarke—knowledgeable automobile designer who now writes design critiques for The Autopian—and others in the industry consider it’s having and could have a number of issues: “As quickly as we noticed [the Cybertruck], everybody I do know within the trade began laughing. We simply thought there isn’t any method they’re gonna have the ability to get that into manufacturing,” he says.
Clarke believes it’s going to be extraordinarily exhausting to make “these useless straight panels.”
JULY 20, 2023
The primary manufacturing prototype of the Cybertruck rolls off the manufacturing line on the Giga Texas manufacturing facility, and eagle-eyed auto industry experts instantly spot one main high quality mishap: the back and front passenger doorways don’t align.
Misalignment like this isn’t new to Teslas, however Elon Musk vowed to get rid of the issue back in 2021. These issues will proceed in fashions by way of the whole manufacturing run.
Additionally, throughout a Could 2023 shareholder assembly, Musk insisted that the Cybertruck would be built as an exoskeleton, a strong metal pores and skin design that might act because the construction, making the automobile nearly indestructible.
However Cory Steuben, a automobile and manufacturing skilled, pointed out on the automotive video weblog Munro Live that the Cybertruck clearly doesn’t have an exoskeleton. In response to him, the Cybertruck’s meeting line footage present an everyday unibody chassis, similar to the one you’ll discover on “an outdated Honda Ridgeline or a Mannequin Y,” with its flat panels simply appearing as your standard physique.
AUGUST 24, 2023
The Cybertrucks popping out of Tesla’s Texas manufacturing facility usually are not ok, in response to Musk. His internal email to Tesla staff is leaked, and divulges his issues in categorical phrases: “As a result of nature of Cybertruck, which is manufactured from vibrant metallic with largely straight edges, any dimensional variation reveals up like a sore thumb.”
DECEMBER 1, 2023
Keep in mind the promised $39,900 beginning price ticket? It was incorrect. The real starting point is officially announced: $60,990.
JANUARY 25, 2024
Stories of the locking differential function being inoperative seem, displaying a “Coming Quickly” message throughout use, in response to The Drive.
FEBRUARY 2, 2024
Tesla issues an over-the-air software update recall for 2.2 million vehicles, together with the Cybertruck. The font dimension of the ABS, brake, and park indicators is just too small, which might enhance the chance of a collision.
FEBRUARY 22, 2024
New Cybertruck house owners report rust and corrosion on the allegedly stainless-steel body of the truck, especially in vehicles exposed to rain. This was one of many largest promoting factors that Musk touted when he introduced the truck.
FEBRUARY 28, 2024
A number of house owners report seeing 25 critical system errors inside just a few days of utilizing the truck, together with warnings from the high-voltage system, “crucial steering situation” system malfunctions, and “lack of system redundancy” that alerted drivers that the “automobile might all of a sudden lose electrical energy, steering, and propulsion, and could also be unable to use the parking brake.”
There have been additionally alerts for degraded adaptive drive management plus mechanically disabled traction, lane departure avoidance, and stability controls. Some customers additionally report door latches that don’t work.
MARCH 12, 2024
Musk beforehand introduced a futuristic non-compulsory tenting tent that matched the polygonal shiny appears to be like of the automobile, however that smooth render of the long run turned out to be a sad hodgepodge of flaccid fabric in actual life.
MARCH 13, 2024
The Cybertruck Homeowners Membership discussion board is now flowing with a large number of reported issues. Owner “cyberstank” reports how they took supply on March 13, “made it one mile down street, began getting steering error, flashing purple display, pulled off the aspect of freeway. Now the truck is useless and I’m ready for a tow truck. Vendor couldn’t do something for me. It was nice for five minutes. I attempted the whole lot, restarting, display is caught black and retains beeping.” The message ends with: “Tesla actually rushed these vans out, what a nightmare.”
MARCH 26, 2024
One owner reports problems with the Cybertruck’s autopilot system: “I encountered a truck on the opposite aspect of a two-lane freeway. My Cybertruck all of a sudden made a tough brake cease once we each had a transparent extensive sufficient area between us. Fortunately there isn’t any automobile on the again as it could have been a particular collision.” In the identical thread, others report comparable issues however, to be honest, customers report this occurs with different Tesla fashions.
APRIL 1, 2024
Homeowners everywhere in the web present the effects of the Cyberguillotine: Tesla didn’t embody anti-pinch sensors for the Cybertruck’s frunk, which might trigger extreme accidents or amputations if fingers get caught. The truck will slice the hell out of your fingers—or any physique appendage—that will get too close to its closing entrance hood. (It occurs with its doorways too.)
APRIL 9, 2024
Apparently, the Cybertruck’s allegedly bulletproof and indestructible, so-called Armor Glass can’t stand hail, as this Redditor shows. The fee for the restore, in response to the proprietor? “Simply received an estimate of $2,326.75 by way of app service request.”
APRIL 15, 2024
Tesla halts all Cybertruck deliveries after house owners report an issue with the accelerator pedal, which might become stuck down, due to lubricant residue inflicting the pedal cowl to shift and change into lodged in place.
APRIL 19, 2024
Tesla physically recalls all its Cybertrucks. The recall discover states: “The accelerator pedal can change into caught, sending the truck accelerating past management, making it a hazard to everybody on the street.”
JUNE 25, 2024
Tesla is forced to recall its Cybertruck for the fourth time within the U.S. due to points with trim items that may come free and entrance windshield wipers that may fail. The issues introduced by the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration have an effect on greater than 11,000 vans.
One situation includes the windshield wiper motor controller receiving an excessive amount of electrical present. This may trigger wipers to fail and cut back visibility, posing a crash danger. Tesla will substitute the wiper motor totally free and should notify all house owners by letter by August 18.
The opposite recall issues a trim piece alongside the truck mattress which will come free and change into a hazard for different drivers. Tesla will repair this situation by changing or transforming the trim piece and can notify house owners on the identical date.
MARCH 20, 2025
Tesla issues a new physical recall that covers all 2024 and 2025 fashions constructed between November 13, 2023, and February 27, 2025: about 46,000 items, many of the Cybertrucks ever shipped. A chrome steel strip might fall as a result of it doesn’t meet sturdiness testing necessities, inflicting a danger of harm or collision.
OCTOBER 23, 2025
Tesla recalls 63,619 Cybertrucks—primarily each Cybertruck on the street at that time—as a result of the entrance parking lights are too vibrant, exceeding federal security requirements and blinding oncoming drivers. Tesla fixes it with an over-the-air software program replace.
MAY 7, 2026
Tesla recollects 173 Cybertrucks outfitted with 18-inch metal wheels as a result of the brake rotor stud holes can crack below the stress of tough roads and cornering, permitting the wheel stud to separate from the hub. The wheels can fall off. Tesla will substitute the entrance and rear brake rotors, hubs, and lug nuts at no cost. Notification letters exit in early July 2026.
