Tesla Model 3 skid sends stock into spin

Tesla shares fell 5 percent in afterhours trading, pushing it into bear territory — down 21 percent from its 2017 high, underscoring the company’s need to quickly overcome its Model 3 production snafus.

Tesla shares tumbled as much as 5 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday after the company admitted it would not meet aggressive 2017 production goals of its super-important Model 3 sedan.

Chief Executive Elon Musk said the 5,000 Model 3s-a-week goal would not be met until late in the first quarter of 2018.

The deadline pushback and a whopping $619 million loss in the third quarter dented Tesla shares — dropping them more than 21 percent below their 2017 high, putting the electric-car maker firmly in bear market territory.

Musk attributed the missed production goals on battery-assembly problems at Tesla’s Gigafactory near Sparks, Nev.

“A subcontractor dropped the ball — and we did not know the degree to which the ball was dropped,” he said.

The production problems helped pro- duce a net loss of $3.70 per share in the quarter — 62 percent greater than the anticipated loss of $2.28.

Tesla beat top-line expectations, however, reporting revenue of $2.98 billion, slightly ahead of an analysts’ consensus of $2.95 billion.

Musk, perhaps irritated over the production troubles, dressed down journalists during a Wednesday conference call for writing “ridiculous” stories about Tesla firing hundreds of workers last month as part of the company’s annual performance review.

“The little guy [on the line] better have a lot more skill,” the Tesla CEO, plagued by a persistent cough, said during the call. “That’s why our standards are so high.”

The 700 workers canned from Tesla were from a workforce of 33,000. Yet no journalist bothered to put that 2 percent dismissal rate in context when writing about the company’s apparent ills, he said.