Tesla Shares Continue to Fall after Fatal Car Crash

Tesla’s shares continue to plummet to their rock bottom in almost two years in the wake of the fatal Model X crash in California. The incident put heavier pressure on Elon Musk’s automobile company.

Authorities are in cooperation with Tesla officials to retrieve data logs from the vehicle in the crash, which happened on Friday. According to a Tesla blog post, the driver was killed but it was not indicated whether the Model X’s Autopilot system was engaged. The automaker defended the feature.

The Autopilot feature is Tesla’s precursor to the further autonomous driving capability of the Tesla car models.

Tesla has been facing headwinds this month, with their shares sliding on almost all days. The trend continued on Wednesday, where shares declined as much as 9.7 percent to $252.10. That figure was the biggest drop since June 2016.

The company’s unsecured bonds also hit an all-time low prior to the release of its Q1 production results, which are set to be published next week.

Analysts’ reports have also been cautious, with Cowen & Co saying that it’s time to “question Autopilot leadership” at Tesla. Sanford C. Bernstein focused on the “fallacy of automation” in relation to the boosting of production.

Aside from the crash, which is still under ongoing investigation, Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk also has to resolve other challenges. These include concerns over the company’s possible failure to meet production targets for the Model 3 sedan.

Days prior to the Model X crash, another autonomous driving-related accident involving Uber Technologies Inc happened and raised fresh concerns over the autonomous-vehicle industry.

“We have in the past questioned Tesla’s promise that the current hardware will be able to eventually provide full self-driving capability,” said Cowen analyst Jeffrey Osborne in a note. Osborne rates Tesla as “underperform.”

In addition, Osborne said that Tesla may not be able to meet the eventual government standard in spite of the self-driving equipment and capabilities it has been bragging about.

Tesla’s bond decreased 4.5 cents on the dollar to 86.5 cents, according to Trace, the bond price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

The Fatal Crash

According to the California Highway Patrol, the 38-year-old driver named Wei Huang was killed when his Tesla collided with a highway barrier on southbound Highway 101 near Mountain View and caught fire.

The driver’s LinkedIn profile indicated Wei to be a software engineer who recently joined Apple Inc in November. Prior to that, he has worked more than a decade at Electronic Arts Inc.

Apple didn’t provide a comment regarding this matter.

In a tweet on Tuesday, the US National Transportations Safety Board said that it was investigator who would examine the issues that the accident raised, including the post-crash fire and the steps necessary to make the vehicle safe to remove from the scene.

Batteries in the Tesla’s models are designed to prevent the rapid spread of fire in case an accident occurs. This theoretically would give people more time to exit or be removed from the car.

“That appears to be what happened here as we understand there were no occupants still in the Model X by the time the fire could have presented a risk,” said the company in their blog post.

Tesla also stated that the extended damage seen in the collision was caused by the removal of a safety barrier, which was meant reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider. Others suggest that the barrier had been previously crushed in a prior accident.

Tesla owners have cruised along the same highway stretch with Autopilot engaged about 85,000 since the system was introduced, and zero accidents have been reported that the company knows, said Tesla.

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