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Tesla's Stock Gets Burned After Car Fire And Downgrading

A Tesla Model S at the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Jan. 15.
Stan Honda
/
AFP/Getty Images
A Tesla Model S at the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Jan. 15.

High-flying billionaire Elon Musk's Tesla Motors has seen its shares skid the past couple days because they've been downgraded by analysts and showing one of the all-electric luxury cars engulfed in flames earlier this week.

Just before noon ET, a share of Tesla was trading around $169.50 — down about 6.5 percent for the day and $25 (13 percent) below its 52-week high of $194.50.

The downgrade by analysts from Baird Research, who shifted Tesla shares from a rating of likely to "outperform" to one of "neutral," was there's already been "significant price appreciation" in the stock.

The news about Baird's new rating .

On Wednesday, gave wide exposure to the YouTube clip, which shows a Tesla Model S that burned the day before near Seattle. Seeing that video of a vehicle from the company that "the safest car in America," seemed to worry investors, .

Tesla spokeswoman Liz Jarvis-Shean "said the fire Tuesday was caused by a large metallic object that directly hit one of the battery pack's modules in the pricey Model S," . "The fire was contained to a small section at the front of the vehicle, she said, and no one was injured."

that firefighters "released more details [Wednesday night] on the fire, saying a battery pack at the front of the car was burning and adding water made the flames worse."

(Note: There are some expletives in the video, so we're rather than embedding it. We are a "family" blog, after all.)

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
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