- Tesla has reportedly halted plans to import parts for the upcoming Tesla Cybercab and Tesla Semi from China.
- It's not clear if Tesla will wait out the tariffs and delay the launches, or if it will source parts elsewhere.
- News of the change could eat away at Tesla's already kneecapped stock price.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk may believe in a driverless future, but even his would-be $30,000 Cybercab can't dance around a 145% import tariff.
According to a new report from Reuters citing an individual with "direct knowledge" of the matter, Tesla has quietly suspended its plans to import parts from China for not just the Robotaxi, but also its all-electric Semi. The blame? Unsurprisingly, it's tariffs.
According to the report, Tesla was planning its import scheme for some time. It was even prepared to eat the additional 34% tariffs initially imposed on Chinese goods. However, after U.S. President Donald Trump escalated the ongoing trade war by increasing duty fees to a hefty 145%, Tesla is now waving the white flag.
From Reuters:
Tesla's plans to ship components from China for Cybercab and Semi electric trucks in the United States were suspended after President Donald Trump raised tariffs on Chinese goods amid a trade war, said a person with direct knowledge.
The move could disrupt Tesla's plan to start mass production of the much-anticipated models, which its CEO Elon Musk has been touting to investors as major innovations providing growth momentum of the U.S. automaker.
[...]
The company was scheduled to start receiving component shipments in upcoming months with the goal of starting trial production of the two models in October and mass production in 2026, the person said, with Cybercab to be produced in Texas and Semi in Nevada.
It's not immediately clear if Tesla is suspending the plans indefinitely and retreating back to the drawing board, or just waiting it out to see if Trump will back off of hefty tariffs in the coming weeks.
It is said that Tesla was expecting to begin receiving components for both vehicles in the coming months. The idea? A trial production run later this year before escalating to mass production in 2026. Of course, we've heard that about the Semi time and time again, and at this point, the truck is more meme than machine. But, hey, anything is possible.
Despite a long-standing bromance with the president, the two have seemingly been at odds with tariffs. The part-time CEO has been flying close to the sun as he attempts to thread the needle between politics and automobiles—at least for a little while longer—and now Musk is finding the company he oversees a potential casualty of his own proximity to power.
It's not like Tesla (nor Musk) didn't see this coming, either. In fact, Tesla has been gradually sourcing more parts from North America just in case something like this happened. And now that the consequences of Musk's political activeness have come home to roost, Tesla is facing a whopping tariff bill to continue sourcing parts from China that it hasn't yet set up a supply chain for at home.
So here sits Tesla. A robotaxi that needs a new source for parts, a Semi that still can't get traction, and a modern company model that relies on the very same kind of global supply chains that other legacy automakers are having trouble solidifying amid some moody international trade policies.
Whether or not a delay of the Semi will be enough to shake investor confidence is unknown. The Cybercab, however, could be something that gets investors up in arms—especially since Musk has been treating Tesla more like an autonomy company than a car company lately. Tesla's quarterly earnings call is less than a week away, and it should be quite interesting to listen in on. Add paused sales of the Model S and X in China, flatlining sales back home, and Tesla trade-ins up 250% year-over-year—well, that kind of speaks for itself.
