Tesla drops after Elon Musk says at Battery Day event that cheaper cars will be delayed

• Tesla's stock fell after founder Elon Musk said at its Battery Day event it would take until 2022 for announcements to reach high-volume production
• Tesla fell as much as 9% on Wednesday.
• Musk said he is eyeing a cheaper vehicle with a target price of $25,000, and planning to build 20 million vehicles.
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Shares in electric vehicle maker Tesla fell as much as 9% on Wednesday, after the company's annual "Battery Day" event at which founder Elon Musk said customers would have to wait another couple of years for cheaper cars.

As of 11:58 am ET, Tesla's stock is down 9% at $358.62.

At the company's shareholder gathering on Tuesday, Musk announced plans to build a cheap electric car with a price tag of $25,000 that will use significantly cheaper batteries.

Musk said: "In three years . . . we can do a $25,000 car that will be basically on par (with), maybe slightly better than, a comparable gasoline car," Musk said.

Musk cautioned in a tweet on Monday that the developments announced during the event won't reach high-volume production until 2022, leaving investors with little in the way of immediate concrete developments.

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The company announced a $140,000 "Plaid" edition of the Tesla Model S with pre-orders open now.

Like many other producers, Tesla sources its batteries from other big producers so it can focus on its key goal of producing electric cars. But Tesla said at the event it plans to develop a "tabless" battery which could lead to better power and range for for electric cars.

Musk said he plans to build around 20 million vehicles, but fell short of providing a specific timeline. By way of comparison, Volkswagen, the world's largest producer built 11 million cars in all of 2019.

Tesla has a history of missing its production targets set by Musk.

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Musk said in May 2016 that Tesla aimed to build 100,000 to 200,000 Model 3 cars during the second half of 2017. He later changed this to 5,000 per week in December 2017, but in November 2017 the company again altered the timeline and said it would hit that number by the end of the first quarter of 2018.

It finally produced 5,000 Model 3 Vehicles in June 2018 but it did not regularly produce for the remainder of that year.

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But Tesla is currently building new factories in Austin, Texas and Berlin, Germany to increase its production in Fremont, California and Shanghai, China.

Even with Monday's drop, Tesla has been one of the top performing blue chip stocks this year, with a gain of 386% so far in 2020.