Tesla is making moves in Central Texas. The brand plans to unleash a small fleet of Robotaxi self-driving EVs on Austin streets. But lawmakers are calling on the electric automaker to delay the launch. If that wasn’t enough, Tesla is set to shut down production at Giga Texas yet again. And like last time, the brand plans “to perform maintenance on production lines,” with the downtime.

Tesla set to shut down production at Giga Texas for a week as lawmakers call to delay Robotaxi rollout

Tesla recently told staff members at Giga Texas, the brand’s Lone Star State factory, that it plans to halt production for a week. Fourth of July week, to be exact. But Tesla didn’t tell its workers that the pause was a show of patriotism, but rather a practical decision. 

Giga Texas is the over 10 million-square-foot home to the Tesla Model Y, the brand’s best-selling model, and the Cybertruck. As such, nearly 28,000 employees staff the massive plant. And many of them are faced with a choice for the week of Independence Day: take paid time off, or come in for “voluntary training and cleaning.”

An employee close to the matter told Business Insider that Tesla would use the downtime at Giga Texas for “improvements” to “help ramp up production.” It is, however, unclear if that production applies solely to the Model Y or other factory efforts.

Tesla also told employees that the shutdown would enable the company to perform some much-needed maintenance on the gigafactory’s production lines. This isn’t the first time that Tesla shut down Giga Texas this year, either. The automaker did the same thing for the week of Memorial Day, offering a similar “take time off or come in and clean” option. 

The news comes just as Tesla plans to kick off its Robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas. Originally, scuttlebutt at Tesla suggested that the automaker intended to kick off self-driving taxi rides by June 12th. However, the brand more recently pushed that timeline back 10 days “tentatively” to the 22nd. Now, Texas lawmakers are calling on Tesla to delay the rollout further.

Given the state of modified promises and missed deadlines, a delay request could be a good thing for CEO Elon Musk. “We are formally requesting that Tesla delay autonomous robotaxi operations until the new law takes effect on September 1, 2025,” lawmakers wrote to Tesla in a letter. “We believe this is in the best interest of both public safety and building public trust in Tesla’s operations.”