Amid slumping sales, Tesla has counterintuitively decided to raise the price on its top-of-the-line Cybertruck, known as the Cyberbeast, by $15,000, InsideEVs reported. The increase brings the total price to $117,235.
In 2019, Elon Musk, Tesla‘s CEO, promised that an entry-level Cybertruck would sell for $40,000, according to Reuters.
What’s happening?
The new, higher-priced Cybertruck model comes with the Luxe Package, which essentially is a mandatory bundle of once-optional features. They include Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software, which previously was available as an $8,000 add-on, per InsideEVs.
Other perks include unlimited Supercharging, a four-year premium service pack, and premium connectivity.
Tesla did not promote the price change but instead made the move overnight, according to InsideEVs. The price increase comes as Tesla struggles to move its existing inventory of Cybertrucks, offering discounts as steep as $10,000 on lower-level models.
From April through June, Tesla sold only 4,306 Cybertrucks, down 51% from the same period a year prior, according to an EV sales report by Kelley Blue Book and Cox Automotive.
Musk previously said that Tesla has the capacity to produce 150,000 Cybertrucks annually, with the potential to boost production to 250,000 vehicles, according to Reuters.
Tesla’s sales struggles are hardly limited to its controversial, aggressively designed Cybertruck. Across the board, Tesla sold 10.8% fewer vehicles in the first half of 2025 than it did in the first half of 2024, per Kelley Blue Book. During the same span, industrywide EV sales increased 1.5%.
Why does it matter?
Tesla’s slumping sales have threatened the company’s formerly safe status as the world’s No. 1 maker of EVs. Though Tesla sales still accounted for over 40% of all EV sales during the first half of 2025, per Kelley Blue Book, the company is going in the wrong direction.
In order to address rising global temperatures, it is necessary for the world to transition away from dirtier, nonrenewable fuels such as gasoline toward cleaner, renewable sources of energy such as solar.
In the United States, the transportation sector is the largest source of planet-heating pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Transitioning from gas-powered to all-electric vehicles would go a long way toward reducing the amount of heat-trapping pollution entering the atmosphere.
Exhaust from gas-powered vehicles also contains particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and carbon monoxide, all of which are harmful to human health, according to the California Air Resources Board.
“Health effects from vehicle pollution can include respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, as well as increased risk of cancer,” the board states. “Children can be exposed to high levels of air pollutants from buses when they are either standing nearby or inside buses.”
What’s being done about it?
With federal tax credits of up to $7,500 for EVs under $80,000 expiring Sept. 30, the industry could be facing a difficult road ahead.
However, with or without government incentives, driving an EV can still save consumers money in the long run while also reducing health-harming and planet-heating pollution.
According to the Department of Energy, driving an EV can save up to $2,200 every year on fuel costs.
To take the cost, public health, and environmental benefits of driving an EV even further, you can install solar panels on your home. Charging your EV on home solar is cheaper than doing so via the grid or at a public charging station, and it gives you the added benefit of knowing that your car is being powered by cleaner, renewable energy from the sun.
EnergySage makes it easy to compare quotes among vetted local installers and ensures that customers take maximum advantage of tax credits and other incentives, saving them up to $10,000.
With federal tax credits for home solar expiring Dec. 31, the time to act is now.
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