Tesla has suddenly stopped assembling the Cybertruck pickup truck. The company sent notices to workers at the Austin plant for an unplanned vacation from Dec. 3 to Dec. 5, Business Insider reports.
It is not known what caused the unexpected pause in the assembly of the electric car. It could be related to both the prevention of overproduction and the quality problems of the Cybertruck, which has already been the subject of several recall campaigns.
Workers at the plant have reported that their schedules have been floating since late October: Some employees have been sent home multiple times or given jobs away from the assembly line -- busy with training or cleaning. Tesla also reduced shifts on the Cybertruck production line in the spring.
The reason may be a decrease in demand for electric pickups. Its premiere in 2019 caused a sensation, thanks to which Tesla collected more than 250 thousand pre-orders in just one week. However, the model's road to serial production was not easy: Cybertruck was seriously delayed and turned out to be significantly more expensive than announced.
So, the first Cybertruck on sale costs from 100 thousand dollars - much more than the promised 40 thousand for the initial version. Now the cheapest offer is starting at $79,000.
Perhaps demand for the electric car turned out to be lower than Tesla expected. According to some publications, this may be the reason for jumps in the production schedule: assembly is paused to avoid overproduction.
According to other reports, the problem may be with the quality of the components and Tesla is trying to protect itself from possible new costly service actions.