Tesla Model 3 will not arrive until ‘very end’ of 2018, says once TSLA-cheerleader Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas

Tesla Model 3 will not arrive until 'very end' of 2018, says once TSLA-cheerleader Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas

Adam Jonas, a Morgan Stanley analyst assigned to cover Tesla, has once been described by the New York Times as a 'Tesla Cheerleader' for his favorable coverage of the company and always higher than average price target on Tesla's stock.

But he has been a lot more cautious with his coverage of the electric automaker over the past few months and he now has an 'Equal-weight' rating on the stock with the most dreaded prediction for Tesla investors and Model 3 reservation holders: Jonas forecasts that the Model 3 will be late by over a year.
Tesla says that the Model 3 will enter production in mid-2017 with volume production toward the end of the year.

In a note sent to clients today in which he slightly reduced his price target on Tesla from $245 to $242 following the company's third-quarter results and SolarCity acquisition, the analyst reiterated a prediction that we apparently missed before:

"We continue to forecast a Model 3 launch at the very end of 2018 (more than 1 year later than company target) with 60k units in 2019 and 130k units in 2020."

He is not only forecasting the vehicle being late to market by over a year, but he is also predicting volumes to be significantly lower than what Tesla is forecasting. CEO Elon Musk has been talking about as many as 400,000 Model 3 sedans being produced in 2018 – compared to Jonas' 60,000 in 2019.

It would be a major disappointment for the over 400,000 reservation holders.

Jonas has a good track record on Tesla and he was one of the rare analysts to have called the stock a 'Buy' before the massive stock price surge in 2013: