Tesla has increased the price of the new Cybertruck AWD from $59,990 to $69,990 — a 17% price hike that took effect today, just 10 days after the trim was introduced.
The price increase follows what might be one of the most cynical new trim introductions in the history of the auto industry: launch at a low price, create urgency by announcing the price will increase in 10 days, then claim the price hike is justified by the inflated demand you just created.
How we got here
On February 19, Tesla launched a new Cybertruck AWD trim at $59,990 — the lowest price ever for the electric pickup truck. The new trim featured dual motors, 325 miles of estimated range, adaptive damping, a powered tonneau cover, and bed outlets with Powershare V2X functionality. It was, on paper, the first Cybertruck that actually made some sense from a value perspective.
But within hours of the announcement, Elon Musk responded to the news on X with just five words: “Only for the next 10 days.”
As we noted at the time, Musk essentially killed the first Cybertruck that made sense just hours after its launch. When pressed on what that meant, Musk clarified that the price would depend on “how much demand we see at this price level.”
The problem is obvious: by announcing that the price will go up in 10 days, you create urgency that inflates demand. Then you point to that inflated demand to justify the price increase. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy dressed up as market dynamics.
Tesla placed a banner on the Cybertruck configurator stating the $59,990 price would only be available until February 28. Delivery estimates quickly slipped from June 2026 to September-October 2026 to 2027 — which Tesla and Musk then pointed to as proof of strong demand.
Today, the price officially jumped to $69,990 — a $10,000 increase. Tesla also removed the lease option for the trim.
The $70,000 AWD vs. the original $70,000 RWD
To be fair, the new $70,000 AWD Cybertruck is a massive upgrade over the $69,990 RWD that Tesla discontinued after just five months on the market because nobody wanted it.
The RWD model at $70,000 was a stripped-down disaster. Tesla removed adaptive air suspension, the motorized tonneau cover, and the bed power outlets to hit that price point, with just a single motor and rear-wheel drive. It was such a poor value proposition that it barely sold.
The new AWD at the same $70,000 price point gets you dual motors, all-wheel drive, 325 miles of range versus roughly 350 for the RWD, adaptive damping, the tonneau cover, bed outlets with V2X functionality, and a far more capable truck overall. If you’re comparing today’s $70,000 AWD to last year’s $70,000 RWD, it’s not even close, the new truck is significantly better.
But that comparison only looks favorable because the RWD was so comically stripped down that it shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
What Tesla promised in 2019
The more revealing comparison is with what Tesla originally announced in November 2019 when the Cybertruck was unveiled. Back then, the dual-motor AWD variant was supposed to cost $49,900 with 300 miles of range. Tesla also promised a single-motor RWD starting at $39,900 and a tri-motor AWD at $69,900 with 500 miles of range.
Today’s $69,990 AWD Cybertruck is 40% more expensive than the $49,900 dual-motor AWD Tesla promised in 2019. Even accounting for inflation, which would put the 2019 price at roughly $63,000 in today’s dollars — Tesla is still charging about $7,000 more than the inflation-adjusted original promise.
And remember, the 2019 tri-motor, top-of-the-line Cybertruck was supposed to cost $69,900, essentially the same price as today’s base AWD trim. Instead, the top Cyberbeast trim currently sells for $99,990, which is $30,000 more than the original top-tier price.
The Cybertruck has been a story of broken pricing promises from day one, but this latest move adds a new layer: manipulated demand dynamics.
Electrek’s Take
This is one of the most ridiculous new trim introductions we’ve ever seen. The playbook was transparent: launch a new, lower-priced trim to generate excitement, immediately create artificial urgency by announcing the price will go up in 10 days, watch orders flood in as people rush to lock in the “limited-time” price, then point to that inflated demand as justification for a $10,000 price increase. It’s circular logic, and it treats customers like marks.
The $70,000 AWD is admittedly a much better truck than the discontinued $70,000 RWD was, but that’s an incredibly low bar. The real benchmark is what Tesla told over a million reservation holders in 2019: a dual-motor AWD Cybertruck for under $50,000. Seven years later, that truck costs $70,000, and the cheapest Cybertruck ever lasted all of 10 days.
We have to wonder what this does for consumer confidence. If you’re in the market for a $70,000 truck, do you trust a company that just demonstrated it will jack up the price 17% on a whim? The Cybertruck remains a commercial underperformer selling roughly 20,000 units per year against original projections of 250,000+. Stunts like this won’t fix that.
I think this new trim could potentially double that, but it would still mean that Tesla will operate the production at a fraction of capacity and therefore, at a loss.
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