Tesla Recalls ALL 173 RWD Cybertrucks Because Wheels Might Fall Off

Remember when the Cybertruck was going to change everything? The stainless steel wedges. The shattered window glass. The 2019 debut where Elon threw a metal ball at his own truck like a toddler testing a birthday piñata. Well, the punchline keeps punching.

Tesla just recalled every single rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck it has ever sold. All 173 of them. Not 173,000. One hundred and seventy-three individual trucks. That's not a recall — that's a group chat.

The issue, per The Verge and NHTSA filings, is that the cantilever rear axle on these single-motor base models might have been machined with a defect that could cause the wheels to, and I cannot stress this enough, detach from the vehicle while driving.

Wheels. Falling off. The thing that cars literally need to not do.

Let's contextualize this catastrophe properly.

Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck on November 21, 2019, at a blustering event in Hawthorne, California. The base RWD model was promised at $39,900 with 250+ miles of range and a 0-60 time under 6.5 seconds. What eventually launched in late 2024 was a $49,900 single-motor truck with 230 miles of range that, by Tesla's own admission in the recall notice, might spontaneously become a three-wheeler.

One hundred seventy-three units. Let that number marinate. Tesla delivered approximately 1.8 million vehicles globally in 2024. The Cybertruck RWD represents 0.0096% of that output. This isn't a production vehicle — it's a limited-edition collectible, like a Labubu figure that costs fifty grand and actively tries to harm you.

The recall feels almost artisanal. Boutique even. You can imagine the 173 owners — scattered across cul-de-sacs in Austin, crypto compounds in Miami, and tech-bro enclaves in Palo Alto — receiving their emails with a mix of horror and weird pride. My truck is so exclusive it has its own exclusive defect. That's a conversation starter at the WeWork.

And the defect isn't subtle. The NHTSA bulletin describes a condition where the rear axle cantilever assembly may have been manufactured with insufficient tolerances, leading to potential lug bolt shearing under "certain dynamic loads." Translation: if you turn, brake, or exist in proximity to a pothole, your back wheels might ghost you like a Hinge date.

Tesla will inspect and, if necessary, replace the rear axle assemblies at no cost. Service appointments are being scheduled now. Owners are advised to — and this is real — "avoid aggressive driving maneuvers" until the repair is completed. So don't do donuts in your $50K stainless steel wedge. Noted.

But here's where it gets spicy: this is the same company that spent 2024 promising Full Self-Driving was this close to unsupervised autonomy. The same company whose Optimus robot wobbled through carefully choreographed demos like a hungover C-3PO. The same company whose CEO was busy running a government efficiency department while his cars couldn't keep their wheels attached.

The Cybertruck was supposed to be Tesla's halo product — the thing that proved Elon's design philosophy could scale past early-adopter cosplay. Instead, it's become a rolling punchline: delayed multiple years, launched with multiple recalls (this is at least the fourth), and now serving up a base model so rare and so broken it qualifies as outsider art.

One hundred seventy-three trucks. You could fit every affected owner in a single IMAX theater. You couldn't fill a Discord server. The Recall of the Century affects fewer people than your local CrossFit gym's 6 AM class.

The real question isn't why 173 trucks have faulty axles. It's why only 173 RWD Cybertrucks exist in the wild months after the model's ostensible launch. Has production bottlenecked? Is demand softer than Tesla wants to admit? Or is the single-motor Cybertruck basically a compliance special — a fig leaf to say the $39,900 truck technically exists while Tesla funnels every battery cell it has into the higher-margin dual and tri-motor variants?

We all know the answer. The RWD Cybertruck is the hollowness of the EV hype cycle made manifest: announced at an aspirational price point to generate pre-orders and headlines, then quietly neutered in specs, raised in price, and produced in quantities so microscopic they qualify as a limited sneaker drop. Except when Nike makes 173 pairs of a shoe, they don't recall them for spontaneously losing their soles.

Tesla will fix the trucks. The 173 will become 173 again, rolling on new axles, ready to confuse valets and alarm pedestrians from coast to coast. But the symbolism lingers. The Cybertruck was supposed to be the future. Turns out the future might shed a wheel on the freeway.

And somewhere in Austin, 173 people are checking their mail for recall notices like they're waiting for a golden ticket. Except the ticket says your car might disassemble itself. Welcome to hype automotive. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle. Assuming the vehicle keeps its wheels.