The Edsel The Cybertruck

 Well, now I know why Elmo is screaming about a movie and melting down about an interview:

Tesla investors got a brutal reminder last week that ambitious targets can curdle into cautionary tales. A Bloomberg report published July 22, 2026 argued the Cybertruck has eclipsed the Ford Edsel as the auto industry's benchmark commercial flop on a target-versus-actual basis. Hours later, Tesla posted a Q2 earnings miss, and the stock logged its worst week since 2022.

Ford launched the Edsel in 1957 with projections of 200,000 units in its first year. It sold less than one-third of that target, and its vertical grille (mocked as resembling a toilet seat) became shorthand for corporate failure that has endured nearly seven decades.

Elon Musk set a higher bar. He projected the Cybertruck could reach 250,000 units annually and called it Tesla's "best product ever." In its first full year, the truck sold roughly one-sixth of that target. Per Bloomberg's chart, Year 2 sales fell to well under 25,000, a steeper proportional miss than the Edsel's.

Cox Automotive figures show the trajectory. Cybertruck sold 38,965 units in 2024, then 20,237 units in 2025, a 48.1% year-over-year decline. Q4 2025 volume was 4,140 units, down 68.1% from 12,991 a year earlier. Q1 2026 hit a record low of 3,519 deliveries, and only 7,133 Cybertrucks were registered in the U.S. through May 2026, per S&P Global Mobility data cited by Bloomberg.

The truck posted the steepest sales decline of any EV nameplate in the U.S. in 2025. Tesla's earnings materials list the Cybertruck alongside Model 3, Model Y, Model S, Model X, Cybercab, Semi and Roadster, but it has not appeared as a growth driver in the last four quarterly reports.

The Cybertruck story is one strand in a broader unraveling. Tesla shares fell 17.81% in the week ending July 24, 2026, closing at $313.03. The single-session drop after earnings ran to 14%, sending the stock to an 11-month low.

Tesla is now spending on making driverless cabs.  How’s that working out?

Tesla confirmed that Cybercab production has begun at Gigafactory Texas, with Robotaxi now operating across seven major metropolitan areas. Musk acknowledged that Robotaxi expansion is being constrained not by demand but by the reliability standards required for safety, with battery packs and electronic components cited as key supply-chain bottlenecks, while the integration of SpaceX's (SPCX) Starlink into Tesla vehicles was also floated as a future connectivity catalyst.

“Reliability standards required for safety.” My route home from the “Y” in the morning requires I take a six lane road, and exit it by a left turn (across traffic, IOW). The left turn arrow is often flashing yellow and while line of sight down the road (oncoming traffic) is good, it’s not perfect. And cars in the opposite turn lane create something of a blind spot. So it may seem the road is clear, when in fact there are cars coming rapidly down the street that you can’t see until you’re in the middle of the intersection.

Not a situation I’m willing to trust a robot to navigate.

And I wonder how they handle 4 way stops when some asshole decides he has the ROW.

I know Tesla deployed those things in Austin. In a strictly geofenced area. Austin traffic is a bear. Austin is not Houston or Dallas Metro or San Antonio. It isn’t built around freeways. Meaning it was never designed to carry the traffic it has. I find it perilous enough when I’m driving. I’d never trust a robot in that traffic. There are times I can’t even trust the sensors in my own car.

So, sure: driverless cars are certainly the flying cars we were promised in the future. I think Tesla should invest more heavily in them. With luck, Elmo will turn the entire Tesla brand in the new Edsel. Or maybe even the Tucker.  Or the Dymaxion. Fuller intended that one to fly. Maybe Elmo should consider that feature.