Tesla Cybertruck not coming to Oz any time soon

The divisive Tesla Cybertruck won’t be coming to Australia – or any other market outside North America – any time soon.

That’s according to the US EV-maker’s CEO and the mastermind behind the polarising wedge-shaped battery-electric pick-up, Elon Musk.

According to Musk, engineering the Cybertruck to meet design standards like those in Europe and Australia – which are stricter than those in North America – would make it “worse”.

“We did design the car to North American requirements, because if you start going with the superset of international requirements, it forces a lot of constraints on the Cybertruck that would make the product frankly worse,” he told investors this week.

“I think we’ll need to make a special version that is, for example, China-compliant or Europe-compliant, but that doesn’t really make sense to add that complexity until we’ve achieved higher volume production on Cybertruck.”

The self-described optimist said Tesla “might be able to certify” the Cybertruck for international markets “sometime next year”, but he stopped short of stipulating which markets or providing a more specific timeframe.

Even if European and/or Chinese versions do materialise, there’s no guarantee there’ll be an Australian version given the extra homologation costs and the engineering complexities associated with converting a vehicle from left- to right-hand drive – especially if it was designed to be LHD from the outset.

These latest development come as a lone Cybertruck tours Australia and prepares to make its way to New Zealand as part of an official ‘Down Under’ roadshow to gauge local interest – something almost certainly related to Musk’s recent comments.

Tesla halted Australian Cybertruck orders in May 2022 with no formal warning or word on whether it would refund deposits. A similar situation unfolded in most other major markets outside North America at roughly the same time.

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