According to Teslarati, Democratic state representatives and senators from Austin sent the EV company a letter formally requesting that it delay the launch of its robotaxi service until September, when a recently passed set of laws and regulations for self-driving cars will be in place.

Following a slow start, Tesla stock jumped by double digits on Monday after Elon Musk's EV maker finally launched its robotaxi service in Austin.

Waymo was last valued at just $45 billion, while autonomous technology drives most of Tesla’s $1 trillion value.

Tesla's June launch of its long-awaited "robotaxi" requires a lot of qualifiers: it was supervised, open only to a few invitees and included somewhere between 10-20 vehicles. The stock jumped 8% the day after the launch, and some participants and observers called it a success. The shares have largely given back that gain since then.

These observers expressed a range of views about Tesla’s prospects but all cautioned against assuming a light-speed robotaxi rollout.Some pointed to advantages Tesla might exploit to overtake rivals including Alphabet’s Waymo and a host of Chinese auto and tech companies.

The launch of the EV maker’s robotaxi service caps a decade of promises about autonomous vehicles by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Tesla achieved an autonomous delivery milestone this week as a vehicle drove itself from the factory to the customer's home, and Elon Musk celebrated on X.