NEW YORK: Tesla , which until recently had been seen as cruising to a bright future, has suddenly hit a rough stretch as fresh concerns over the future of autonomous vehicles have exacerbated worries over its ability to hit production targets.Shares in the California electric car innovator skidded 7.7 percent Wednesday at the close, a day after an 8.22 percent slide. The declines have wiped out some $9 billion in market value.In a sign of heightened mistrust, interest rates charged by institutions lending money to Tesla jumped to 7.74 percent as compared with 6.56 percent at the end of last week.Despite the market troubles, Global Equities analyst Trip Chowdhry advised in a note to buy Tesla shares on the weakness, contending that "betting against Tesla is not only insane but total stupidity. "We are currently working closely with the authorities to recover the logs from the computer inside the vehicle," Tesla said in the post. "Once that happens and the logs have been reviewed, we hope to have a better understanding of what happened. "The company is shooting to produce 2,500 of the models weekly by the end of this month, while initial targets were to be making double that number by the end of last year and 10,000 vehicles weekly by the end of this year.The plunge in Tesla shares is due in part to questions about its ability to ramp-up production of the Model 3 and bring in revenue, or qualify to economically borrow money, needed to keep the company running, according to Morgan Stanley analysts.Moody's downgraded Tesla's rating this week, citing a shortfall in Model 3 production and negative cash flow.Tesla also faces deadlines in the coming year to repay hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, and will need to refinance maturing bonds to avoid running out of money.

Source: Economic Times March 29, 2018 04:07 UTC