AP Photo/Noah Berger
Tesla is set to close lower for a fourth-straight session on Friday. Shares are down 3.17% as of 1:57 p.m. ET, and have been falling since hitting an all-time high of $389.61 on Monday.
The day after its record high, Jefferies initiated coverage of the company with an underperform. Analyst Philippe Honchos said Tesla's progress is impressive thus far, but that he doesn't expect it to scale as well as other analysts are hoping for. Honchos set a price target of $280.
Honchos also pointed out that the company's attempts to vertically integrate are not panning out as well as it had hoped. Two days after Honchos published his note, a CNBC report said that Tesla is partnering with AMD to develop a new autonomous driving chip unique to Tesla. Details about the chip are still unknown, but it could help Tesla to loosen its reliance on Nvidia for specialized self-driving processing chips.
Business Insider's Matt DeBord points out that despite small blips of news, Tesla's story is little changed since announcing the Model 3. The company hopes to be making 20,000 vehicles by the end of the year as it works through its backlog of about 450,000 preorders.
The next big announcement from Tesla is expected to come later this year, when the company unveils its new semi-truck. The truck is expected to have a range of 200 to 300 miles on a single charge and cost around $100,000, though details are sparse ahead of the announcement.
Tesla shares are up 65.17% this year.
