Tesla Might Not Be Able To Build Cybertrucks Anymore

Tesla has asked a federal judge for emergency access to a supplier's plant in Troy, Texas, so it can remove the tooling it needs to keep building the Cybertruck.

According to a complaint first reported by Bloomberg, the supplier, Angstrom Automotive Group, is closing the plant and will not let Tesla in. Tesla says that without those dies, several thousand Cybertrucks already committed to customers will not get built.

The company filed on July 23 in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas. Tesla is not pursuing damages and is not trying to settle the underlying commercial dispute.

"Tesla requests the Court to grant it one thing: retrieval of Tesla's Tooling. It does not seek to litigate any other disputes between the parties," the company wrote in the complaint.

Angstrom's July 13 notice that Troy was closing came with no cooperation on a plan to remove Tesla's equipment. July 17 was the ship date for 700 finished Tesla parts, which never left the building. Angstrom then billed Tesla for modifications made to the tooling and offered to keep the plant running if $250,000 a week arrived on top of what Tesla already owed on open purchase orders. Tesla sent representatives to Troy on July 21 with law enforcement, but the gate stayed shut.

Angstrom has not commented publicly.

The equipment in question is described as purpose-built for specific Cybertruck castings—large die-cast machinery, trim dies, fixtures, cutting tools, gauges, and X-ray inspection gear. Per the complaint, no other supplier can currently make these parts, and rebuilding the tooling would take five to six months. Tesla says its on-hand supply of the affected components is "dwindling and will be exhausted in mere days."

The Cybertruck's Sinking Sales Curve

Tesla originally planned to produce up to 250,000 Cybertrucks annually—this failing forecast may have contributed to the friction. In a scenario where production has shrunk to a tenth of the projected forecast, suppliers are left holding the bag, especially considering the cost to modify tooling and streamline the manufacturing processes.

Following its late 2023 launch, the Cybertruck enjoyed a strong initial wave of deliveries into 2024 as Tesla delivered approximately 39,000 trucks in the United States.

Annual sales figures for 2025 collapsed by 48 percent year-over-year, dropping to 20,237 units. The downward trajectory continued into 2026, with quarterly U.S. registrations dipping to a low of just 3,519 units in Q1 of 2026, a 45.1 percent nosedive. A far cry from the 2 million early hand raisers.

A considerable portion of recent volume has been propped up artificially by internal corporate fleet purchases from other Elon Musk-led ventures, such as SpaceX and xAI.

Angstrom has bigger problems, though. Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals hit the Michigan-based supplier with a $30 million verdict following a six-year legal battle with Eaton over defective clutch levers. In fact, the subsidiary that manufactured the levers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Hemorrhaging cash from the $30 million loss, it appears Angstrom attempted to use its leverage over the Cybertruck to force a million-dollar monthly cash injection from Tesla.