Robotaxi Registrations Surge, How Options Traders Are Betting On
$Tesla (TSLA.US)$'s Robotaxi just hit a major milestone that's catching Wall Street's attention. It has registered 1,655 vehicles and 798 drivers for Robotaxi service in California—a staggering 1,000% increase from just 28 vehicles when the program launched in August.
$Alphabet-C (GOOG.US)$ 's Waymo is reportedly seeking over $15 billion in funding at a $100 billion valuation, more than double its valuation from 1 year ago.
ARK Invest's Cathie Wood projects Tesla's robotaxi business could reach $8-10 trillion in value. That's an eye-popping number, but it hinges on one crucial assumption: Tesla must achieve truly unsupervised, full self-driving capability using only cameras and AI—no expensive lidar systems.
What Smart Money Is Doing
Options activity reveals traders are positioning for upside.
Earlier success story
In early December, I noted a massive bet of $11.9 million in January 2026 $550 calls purchased when Tesla traded at $420. With the stock recently approaching $500, that bet is looking prescient. If you miss the column.
Recent Notable Trades:
Last Friday, Two traders long Feb 20, 2026 $490 calls and March 20, 2026 $500 calls, each spending over $4 million. These positions express strong bullish sentiment extending into next year.
Last Thursday, one trader executed a call calendar spread—selling Dec 26, 2025 $510 calls (collecting $18.2M) while buying Feb 20, 2026 $650 calls ($32.18M net cost: ~$14M). This suggests expectations for near-term consolidation followed by a substantial rally.
Here's what makes Tesla interesting right now: implied volatility sits at just 52%, cheaper than 88% of the past year. For options buyers, lower IV means cheaper premiums, potentially offering better risk-reward ratios.
Open interest clusters heavily around $500 calls, indicating this psychological level matters to many traders.
What is Call Calendar Spread
Definition
A Call Calendar Spread is an options strategy where you bet on time rather than a big price movement. You want the stock price to stay relatively flat (neutral) in the short term, but you want to hold a position for the long term in case the stock goes up later.
Set up
You enter two trades simultaneously on the same stock, with the same Strike Price, but different expiration dates.
– Sell (Short): A Call option that expires soon (e.g., 0~30 days).
– Buy (Long): A Call option that expires later (e.g., 30~90 days).
– Strike Price: Usually the current stock price (At-The-Money).
Net Cost: Since the long-term option costs more than the short-term option, you must pay money (a debit) to enter this trade.
The Logic (How you make money)
The secret sauce of this strategy is Time Decay (Theta). Options lose value as they get closer to their expiration date. However, short-term options lose value much faster than long-term options.
– The Goal: You want the option you sold (the short-term one) to lose its value rapidly and expire worthless so you can keep the money you sold it for.
– The result: Meanwhile, the option you bought (the long-term one) retains most of its value.
– Profit: Your profit is the difference in how fast the two options decay.
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Options Strategist/CFA Charterholder/enjoy investment journey :) Learn, Trade and Earn.
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KingVito123 : gogoro
xiao ren : Imagination is always rosy. In reality, however, if the direction is wrong, the appreciation of near-term options can be several times faster than that of longer-dated ones.![[undefined]](https://static.moomoo.com/nnq/emoji/static/image/default/default-black.png?imageMogr2/thumbnail/36x36 "undefined")
73953693 : Learn options.
Make good use of them.
Middleman_chen : Yes, teacher.
Monta HONG CFA OP KingVito123 : close to 500
sunwu79 :![[undefined]](https://static.moomoo.com/nnq/emoji/static/image/default/default-black.png?imageMogr2/thumbnail/36x36 "undefined")