Tesla Refunds 2 Million Cybertruck Deposits Across Australia and New Zealand

Australian and New Zealand drivers who paid to reserve a Tesla Cybertruck will get their money back. On October 23, Tesla sent emails to customers confirming that their orders are void. The company is returning all deposits and payments, with processing to be completed within 30 days. This decision ends a wait that has lasted nearly seven years for buyers in both countries.

The refund amount varies by individual, but the base reservation fee was A$150 for those who signed up starting in November 2019. Tesla’s email stated that it is "unable to fulfil your reservation and it will be cancelled." For customers who choose to order a new Model 3 or Model Y instead, Tesla is offering a free one-year subscription to Full Self-Driving (Supervised). This incentive aims to convert the dead reservation into a sale for a right-hand-drive vehicle that Tesla currently produces.

The move follows Tesla’s third-quarter 2026 earnings report, released just one day before the cancellation emails went out. The company’s limited international rollout for the Cybertruck has so far been confined to left-hand-drive markets. Deliveries began in South Korea in late 2025 and in the United Arab Emirates in January 2026. Configurers for the truck have since appeared in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Israel. The vehicle remains blocked in the European Union, primarily due to pedestrian safety concerns.

The core issue preventing sales in Australia and New Zealand is the vehicle’s design. The Cybertruck is built exclusively in left-hand drive, while both countries require right-hand drive vehicles. Australia also requires certification under its own design rules, a costly process for a vehicle that has seen weak demand in North America. Tesla quietly closed its Australian reservation page in May 2022, replacing it with a "Get updates" button, but did not issue refunds at that time.

In 2024, Tesla shipped a Cybertruck to Australia for a display tour. Elon Musk told shareholders that year that the company "might be able to certify it for other markets sometime next year," but a right-hand-drive version never materialized. A crowdsourced survey in 2020 suggested Australia was the third-largest market for reservations behind the United States and Canada, accounting for about 3% of the total. By 2023, tracking data placed total global reservations at roughly 2 million units.

Sales figures suggest a redesign for right-hand-drive markets is unlikely. Tesla delivered 8,295 "Other Models" in the third quarter of 2026, a category now composed almost entirely of Cybertrucks since production of the Model S and Model X ended. Estimates place quarterly Cybertruck sales at 7,000 to 8,000 units, or about 30,000 annually. This is well below the production line’s capacity of 250,000 units per year. US sales have also fallen sharply from approximately 39,000 in 2024.

The cancellation leaves buyers in a combined population of about 33 million without the truck. Many reservation holders had likely already canceled their orders in previous years, as the final vehicle arrived with a higher price and less range than initially promised. Tesla’s email confirmed the discontinuation of production plans for the region, closing the chapter on a vehicle that was once expected to be a major international export.