Tesla recalls nearly every Cybertruck, then kills it for a robotaxi and a flying car, neither shipped.

…(cont) Cybertruck leaves no children, in the biological or vehicular sense, and no trade-in value worth discussing. It is survived by the Cybercab, the robotaxi its maker says will carry Tesla to "domination" of the ride-hailing business, as an executive put it in October while the company prepared to expand the service past Austin. The Cybercab has given rides. It has not, as of this obituary, shipped as a product a customer can simply buy — the same condition the Cybertruck was promised to escape and never did.

It is preceded in death, loosely, by the Roadster, the flying car Tesla unveiled on October 16th with a livestreamed demonstration of the vehicle flipping and leaping over other cars on borrowed SpaceX thruster technology. The Roadster has not shipped either. The family that survives Cybertruck, in other words, is two vehicles that exist mainly as demonstrations, with a third generation of applause already scheduled.

The company calls this progress: winding down one unsold truck to clear the floor for one unproven taxi, with an unsold flying car waiting in the wings for its own obituary. Whippersnapper industries might call that iteration. The obituarist calls it what the recall notice already called it — a truck that could not hold its own panels on, replaced by a promise that has not yet had to prove it can hold anything at all.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that the next vehicle Tesla announces be allowed to actually ship before the one before it is declared dead.