One of Tesla's biggest bulls just slashed his price target and is now a bear

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One of Tesla's biggest bulls just slashed his price target and is now a bear

Elon Musk shrug

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Images

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One of Tesla's biggest bulls, Morgan Stanley automotive analyst Adam Jonas, is now officially a bear.

The widely followed analyst slashed his price target for shares of the electric automaker to $291 from $376 on Tuesday, bringing his target below Tesla's trading price for the first time in months.

"While 1Q18 results were broadly in line with consensus expectations (and slightly above our forecasts),we are making material reductions to our earnings estimates to reflect lingering manufacturing issues with the Model 3 - most recently at Fremont final assembly," Jonas told clients Tuesday.

"It is our view that the challenges in ramping up Model 3 production reflect fundamental issues of vehicle design, manufacturing process, and automation levels that can weigh against the profitability of the vehicle."

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In April, Tesla fell short of Model 3 production targets for the first quarter. The company said that total Model 3 production was 9,766 for the quarter and that it delivered 8,180 cars. It hopes to meet its 5,000-a-week Model 3 goal by the end of its second quarter.

Tesla's stock price slipped Monday following another autopilot crash, this time in Utah, which the NTSB said it would investigate alongside its other currently open investigation into the fatal crash of a Model X in California in March.

Also on Monday, Tesla said its highest-ranking engineer would take a leave of absence and CEO Elon Musk formally announced the restructuring he had previously hinted about on Tesla's bizarre first-quarter earnings conference call.

"To ensure that Tesla is well prepared for the future, we have been undertaking a thorough reorganization of our company" Musk said in a company-wide email.

"As part of the reorg, we are flattening the management structure to improve communication, combining functions where sensible and trimming activities that are not vital to the success of our mission. To be clear, we will continue to hire rapidly in critical hourly and salaried positions to support the Model 3 production ramp and future product development."

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Musk maintains these structural changes should help Tesla achieve profitability this year, but Jonas remains unconvinced.

"We have increased our estimate for Tesla's capital raising from $2.5bn to $3.0bn, which we continue to expect in 3Q18," he said. "We see Tesla as trading near fair value with a balanced risk reward,and believe that is subject to extremely high levels of fundamental execution risk, market/funding risk,and a highly volatile share price."

Shares of Tesla have sunk 11% this year.

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