Tesla cancels 2 million Cybertruck reservations in Australia

Tesla emailed customers in Australia and New Zealand on Wednesday, October 23, to confirm that their Cybertruck reservations are cancelled and their deposits will be refunded. The notification arrived the day after the company released its third-quarter 2026 earnings report.

The move ends a wait of nearly seven years for reservation holders who paid A$150 to secure their spots. Tesla stated in the email that plans to produce the truck for these regions have been discontinued. The company added that it is unable to fulfil the reservations and that full refunds will be processed within 30 days.

Customers who choose to order a new Model 3 or Model Y instead will receive a free one-year subscription to FSD (Supervised). Tesla appears to be using this incentive to convert stalled reservations into sales of vehicles it currently builds in right-hand drive configurations.

The central obstacle has been the vehicle's design. The Cybertruck is built exclusively in left-hand drive, while Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Japan require right-hand drive. Australia also mandates certification under its own design rules, which is costly for a vehicle facing weak demand in North America.

By 2023, crowdsourced tracking estimated total reservations in Australia and New Zealand at roughly 2 million. A 2020 survey suggested the market held about 3% of all global reservations. Tesla quietly closed the Australian reservation page in May 2022, replacing it with a button for updates, but did not refund customers at that time.

Sales data does not support a redesign for these markets. Tesla delivered 8,295 units of its 'Other Models' category in the third quarter of 2026, a figure that now represents almost entirely the Cybertruck. Electrek estimates quarterly Cybertruck sales at 7,000 to 8,000 units, or roughly 30,000 annually, against a production line built for 250,000 units per year.

The truck's international rollout has been confined to left-hand-drive countries. Deliveries began in South Korea in late 2025 and in the UAE in January 2026. Configulators later appeared in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Israel. The vehicle remains blocked in the EU, primarily over pedestrian safety concerns. Australia and New Zealand together have a population of about 33 million.