Investors punished Tesla yesterday after the carmaker was reprimanded by federal regulators over a fatal crash and its mounting losses unnerved markets ahead of closely watched production numbers.
Telsa shares plunged more than 8 per cent in morning trading in Wall Street’s first verdict since the company slipped out an admission on Friday that last month’s California crash involved its Autopilot system, a form of low-level self-driving technology.
The markets had already been flashing a warning over Tesla’s increasingly stretched finances, as it struggles to ramp up delayed production of its Model 3 and faces an impending cash crunch. It is due to release Model 3 production figures in a matter of days.