Tesla 2025Q2 Deliveries Miss Expectations, But Stock Rallies 5% – An Explanation and 3 Option Trading Ideas

On July 2, 2025 (Wednesday) pre-market, Tesla released its Q2 2025 delivery figures. The company delivered 384,122 vehicles globally in the second quarter, down about 13.5% from 443,956 units in Q2 2024. This marks the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines.

This delivery result missed Wall Street analysts’ consensus estimate in advance of this data release, which was 394,000.

Yet the market's reaction of this result is positive: Tesla's shares surged to a pre-market high of $320, the soar moderates during intraday and closed at $315.65, up 4.97%.

Clearly, Tesla’s fundamentals as an automaker no longer justify its current valuation. What keeps the bulls committed is its potential as a tech and creation hub – specifically, its ambitions in AI, auto-driving, energy storage, and robotics divisions. This divergence between its present auto business and futuristic promises has caused Tesla’s stock to swing wildly over the past few years, with investors struggling to find a "valuation anchor."

The price's rebound upon Q2 delivery's release reveals a key point of Tesla: investors aren’t trading Tesla as an auto-manufacturer anymore. This point is emphasized after Tesla’s Robotaxi (autonomous ride-hailing service) launched in Austin, Texas, just 10 days ago.

Recall April 2024, when Tesla stock crashed below $140. Back then, investors truly lost faith in its core auto-manufacturing business and sold its shares off. At that price, Tesla likely traded near its "fair value" as just a car-maker. Yet the market's opinion has been changing ever since. In 2025, the car deliveries may not exceed 2024’s, yet the stock is over 100% higher today – boosted entirely by bets on its non-auto high-tech divisions.

Tesla's share is one of the world's hardest trades. But its options are also among the world’s most actively traded. In the current market, three key option ideas are to be considered:

Long call is the basic and beginning-level option trading strategy, yet it is the most effective one if used correctly. Since its relatively high leverage ratio, timing is the most important factor to be considered when an investor is to construct a long call position. Never chase the rally.

Interms of Telsa, use long call to buy the dip in the current market is the most efficient method. And the dips are often caused by irrational market panic, like the Musk-Trump Feud on June the 5th, when Tesla's price slumped 14% in a single day.

To be long a call option means to buy it. A call buyer's goal is to profit from the underlying stock's price increase without the equivalent level of upfront capital required to own the stock outright, while also trying to manage risk. The call option's premium increases as the underlying price goes up. Since there is no theoretical limit for the stock price to rise to, the potential gain of a long call position could be unlimited.

Some investors are not so skilled on market-timing, or not comfortable with the swing caused by the long call's leverage, then a moderate short put strategy may be suitable for them.

Short put is to be considered when investor expects the underlying stock's price either remains stable or increases moderately. To be short an option means to sell it; therefore, a short-put strategy is also called an option-writer strategy.

By selling a put option, the investor receives a premium upfront. If the stock price fells below the strike, then the option would be exercised and the investor is obliged to buy the stock at the strike price. But the premium he collected can reduce his cost and his real cost is much lower than the strike price.

On the contrary, if the stock price remains above the strike price until maturity, then the investor can just put the premium back to his pocket.

Of course, the investor can avoid the risk of being exercised by pushing the strike price low enough, or by reserving a wide-enough safety-margin. That would allow the investor to entirely collect the premium of the option – like collecting the stock's "dividend".

We should pay attention to the limited potential profit versus the unlimited potential loss feature of this strategy. When the stock price equals the strike price at expiration, both options are out-of-the-money, the premium collected upfront turns into profit. So the maximum profit equals total premium received.

In terms of the potential loss, when the stock price rises or falls dramatically at expiration, causing one of the two option expiring in-the-money (ITM) , which means the investor has to be assigned, then the profit might be reduced or even turned into a loss.

Therefore, the ideal condition to use the short strangle strategy is a neutral outlook on the stock, with an implied volatility(IV) higher than the historical average, which suggests a profit-generating shrinking of IV.