TSLA Hits Gas on Global EV Growth, Robotaxi & Optimus Next Gear Shift

smarter with Schwab. We're back on Morning Trade live. We're taking a look over the last year that was for Tesla shares. And incredibly this stock is like within a percent of where it was a year ago. It has been up substantially higher than here. And it has just been recently over 10% lower than where we're trading right now. So it has been another roller coaster ride of a trading year for Tesla shareholders. But it's time to go inside out. Joining us now is Ben Rose. He is a president and analyst at Battle Road Research. And he's here to help make some sense of, you know kind of the key EV player, but also so, so much more. So let's start there. Core EV business. We know there was certainly, to put it lightly, some gullies the last several years. But how are things as they stand right now? Is Tesla still a dominant player in this space in the in the United States? Absolutely. A dominant player. Tesla continues to have about 50% of all EV sales in the US. And that's something like 6 or 7 times its closest competitor in the in the market looking at, you know, Tesla being a global business, has decent market share in Europe as well as China, where it has factories on all three continents. So I'd say overall, the business is going well. I think in the US, which is obviously the most visible to US investors, the market is down this year, primarily the result of the rescission of the federal of the US federal tax credit for EVs. So Tesla continues to have strong market share but the market is down in the US. Okay. And so as we kind of think about Tesla, the business and not just the car brand, we know that they're, you know, a leader in one. I mean, just forward thinking innovation, particularly when it comes to some of this energy related things. But we know a big part of the business in terms of earnings and the fundamentals, is this burgeoning energy arm that they have now. I can't so correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember that kind of being the disappointing spot last time we heard earnings. Is that is that the case or is this still a pretty key growth driver? Yeah. You know, you're you basically have it right in the sense that it is still a top line revenue growth driver business is doing well. It's up to about 10% of revenue. But as you pointed out, the margins have compressed in this business and they are facing more competition. So I think the hope was that margins would continue to stay up in the energy storage business. But they've actually come come down. So I think that's part of the readjustment to the stock. All right Ben, as we kind of tie this all together then I mean we're talking about Tesla and we talk about it so much because it's obviously a stock that carries a premium valuation. It moves around a lot. And a huge part of that is the other stuff. It's the autonomous driving. It's the robotics. It's the what is it, the Optimus. And you know, it's not just that, hey, Cybertruck looks like a video game car. And it's a, it's an edgy company, but they're actually working on some of these things that just have tremendous upside if they get them right. You know, where do things stand with that? Because it always seems like it's somewhere down the line and not quite here. Yeah. That's that is a, that is a big issue. And might I say that when you showed the chart at the outset of the segment, you showed how much the stock had risen at the end of 2025. At that time, I think there was a lot of, frankly, nearer term expectation built in around their robo cab, which is their fully self-driving car, as well as Optimus, their humanoid, their humanoid robot. And as you can see from the chart, you know, it's definitely been dragging down because those efforts, while still very much underway, they're going to take some time, meaning probably multiple years to come to fruition. In the meantime, one of the areas they are making a lot of progress is in their autonomous driving software that is now embedded and opted for on more than 50% of Tesla's EV sales. So that area is real. You know, we're not at the point where drivers can take their hands off the wheel and go for a snooze while driving their cars. But, you know, the feedback there was, it is pretty incredible that trips can be mapped out. And there's a lot, you know, there's not very much involvement on the part of the driver to deploy the software. So they are making good progress there. Yeah. No doubt. I mean, you talk to if you got any friends that have this stuff, they make it sound like it's way closer than than maybe it is. At least I hope it's close because they sound pretty distracted at times. But Ben, appreciate it as always. Have a great weekend. Ben Rose President Analyst at Battle Road Research. All right let's go inside out here. Trade a little bit with Tom white example trade time host of fast markets here with us. Man this stock moves. It moves a lot. Yeah it's volatile. But implied volatility is actually really low. The IV percentile rank is down at about 5%. So we're in the bottom. It's won for the last three years incredibly. Yeah. So implied volatility levels over the last you know 52 weeks are at some of their lowest levels. So I looked at a strategy. If you think maybe this 10% rally that we've seen so far this month might sputter out of here a little bit. I looked at a strategy that gives me some downside exposure over the next maybe five weeks. So I looked at it in September at an unbalanced put butterfly here, where I can offset some of the costs on this bearish trade, as opposed to maybe just buying a put or buying a put vertical September going out, buying one of the 350 puts that's in the money. It's got that higher negative delta. And then selling two of the 325 puts. That's where you want it to go. And then buying one of the 315 strike puts for as a package. This unbalanced or broken wing put butterfly. You're going to pay roughly about $8 debit. It's probably trading closer to 878 80 right now because the stock has fallen from session highs as we speak down over 2% from those session highs. So if you pay that $8 debit that's going to be your risk $800 per spread. You can make you know max profitability about 1700. And that's right at or near that three strike. That's where you want it to go. But even if the stock falls out of bed, Alex goes below 315. It's going to be nearly a double in profitability. So this is a measured type of, you know, strategy that gives you that downside exposure here. If you pay that $8 debit, you break even. 342 we're right there right now. So you don't need that big of a movement to get down below that break even here of 342 to the downside. So yeah, unbalanced put butterfly. Alex offsetting some of the costs by doing that as opposed to maybe just a vertical. Good stuff. Tom White make sure you check out Tom later on with