Tesla experienced a surge in options trading for contracts expiring January 9. This activity, concentrated in both puts and calls, signals significant investor uncertainty ahead of the company's upcoming earnings call. Traders are hedging against downside risk and recalibrating their positions.
This market nervousness follows a pivotal announcement from CEO Elon Musk regarding Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. Musk stated that Tesla requires approximately 10 billion miles of data to achieve "safe unsupervised self-driving."
This 10-billion-mile requirement establishes a new, substantial goalpost for FSD development. Projections indicate the threshold might not be reached until mid-2026, followed by extensive testing. This revision effectively pushes the widely anticipated timeline for a robotaxi network further into the future.
The news has fueled debate among analysts and investors. Discussions center on the valuation of Tesla’s AI and autonomy ventures.