Tesla upgrades Cybertrucks with Foundation Series badges to sell them as regular trucks

Tesla is converting some of its Foundation series Cybertrucks into regular Cybertrucks to sell them and is sending hundreds of US Cybertrucks to Canada for homologation as it faces problems selling in the US.

There have been several signs recently that Tesla has cleared its Cybertruck reservation backlog and is now experiencing some demand issues.

Earlier this month, we reported that Tesla told employees working on the Cybertruck production line at Gigafactory Texas to take a few days off.

Tesla also lowered leasing prices and directly discounted the Cybertruck by including it in its referral program.

There are many different Cybertrucks in stock that are available for immediate delivery, including many Foundation Series Cybertrucks:

The Foundation Series were the first Cybertrucks produced for reservation holders. Tesla increased the price by $20,000 and bundled a number of features and accessories.

In October, Tesla switched production to regular Cybertrucks, which are cheaper, but we now learn that Tesla is still stuck with many Foundation series trucks.

According to a source familiar with the matter and obtained documents, the automaker is now even planning to de-foundation series of some Cybertrucks Electrics.

In addition to the $20,000 package of features and accessories that Tesla is adding to the Foundation Series Cybertruck, the vehicles also feature special laser-etched badges on the exterior of the vehicle and Foundation badges on the interior of the dashboard.

Tesla sends the Cybertrucks to service and collision centers in the US to have them removed and sell them as regular Cybertrucks for $20,000 less.

Sources familiar with the matter also confirmed that Tesla plans to modify over 800 Cybertrucks to homologate them for the Canadian market and ship them to Canada, where Tesla believes they have a better chance of selling them.

All of these efforts increase pressure on employees at Tesla’s service and collision center – resulting in longer wait times for owners.

Electrek’s take

The Cybertruck quickly became the best-selling electric pickup in the United States. That’s an impressive achievement, but I think many Tesla fans were too quick to call the vehicle program a success based on that fact.

Cybertruck achieved this thanks to years of backlog and over a million reservations. Then the entire reservation backlog was cleared in less than a year and with only about 40,000 to 50,000 deliveries.

I think Tesla is clearly having trouble selling the Cybertruck in the US right now and hasn’t properly assessed the demand for the Foundation series.

Next year will be the real test for the Cybertruck program. We’ll see how it performs in the market without being behind for years.

Tesla will have the cheaper RWD Cybertruck at $61,000 which will drive demand, but I still think Tesla may have trouble having enough demand to sell 250,000 per year, which was Tesla’s goal. Musk even suggested it could be up to 500,000 per year, but that sounds impossible now.

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