Tesla will probably miss Model 3 production targets, analyst Gene Munster says

Analyst Gene Munster is predicting Tesla will likely miss its Model 3 production targets, Bloomberg reports. In an interview with Bloomberg, Munster said investors expected to see Tesla produce 2,500 to 3,000 cars per week, but it’ll more likely be 1,500 to 2,000 a week. Despite this predicted miss, Munster says he’s still optimistic about Tesla and its stock bouncing back.

“This is rare that you have a car that has the kind of pre-orders that the Model 3 has,” Munster said. “They don’t break that out anymore, but it’s probably somewhere around 400,000 pre-orders, and so there’s more demand than supply, so I think that [Elon Musk] will emphasize that. Likely fall on deaf ear with investors in the near term but I think longer term, as they start to ramp production, the stock is going to quickly reverse.”

Munster’s predictions come shortly after Bernstein analysts argued Tesla overuses automation in the final assembly for Model 3 vehicles. The analysts pointed to over-automation as the reason why Tesla isn’t able to hit its production targets.

Last August, Tesla said it expected to produce 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by the end of 2017. Tesla has since adjusted that number. In January, Tesla said it expects to end this quarter with a weekly rate of 2,500 Model 3 cars, with the goal to hit 5,000 per week by the end of Q2.

Tesla declined to comment for this story.