Waymo Has A Charging Problem (insideevs.com)
- Reference: 0180251881
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/01/1657222/waymo-has-a-charging-problem
- Source link: https://insideevs.com/news/780391/waymo-charging-depot-santa-monica/
The Los Angeles Times [1]reported that neither company planned to, claiming city officials misunderstood their existing permit rights. Waymo told the newspaper it had adjusted operations in response to neighbor feedback and would continue seeking community input, though the company did not address the order directly. Local law enforcement has gotten involved after at least one person attempted to disrupt operations at the facilities on several occasions.
The dispute points to [2]a broader challenge facing the autonomous vehicle industry : charging depots need to be close to service areas to minimize deadhead miles (distance traveled without revenue-generating passengers), but situating them in residential neighborhoods creates exactly these kinds of conflicts.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-11-24/santa-monica-orders-waymo-to-stop-noisy-overnight-operations-at-charging-stations-neighbors-rejoice?AutomotiveVentures
[2] https://insideevs.com/news/780391/waymo-charging-depot-santa-monica/
One silly law causes problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Laws that require backup noises make no sense and cause problems
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> Laws that require backup noises make no sense and cause problems
Laws which require backup noises apply to vehicles where there is no person operating the vehicle who can reasonably see behind them. That's why they are on trucks and buses. They also only apply to commercial motor vehicles, which these are.
The charging stations shouldn't be located in these places, and they should also be designed for pull-throughs. Even if there weren't a noise issue (which there won't be if they aren't installed in dumb locations) there still would be other reasons to do it.
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Nonsense. I have been told by many Slashdotters that these self driving cars see everything a human would and more. I start to have a problem with it when the downplayed weaknesses start killing innocent animals.
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> Laws which require backup noises apply to vehicles where there is no person operating the vehicle who can reasonably see behind them.
That raises an interesting question. Should this requirement apply to autonomous vehicles equipped with sensors that would prevent it from hitting a pedestrian when reversing?
> The charging stations shouldn't be located in these places
Then the city should have banned charging stations in these locations via zoning before one was built there. Knowing Santa Monica, I bet they loved the idea of a charging station being built there before they realized that being green doesn't mean there won't be negatives.
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> Laws that require backup noises make no sense and cause problems
Like the warbling all EVs do at low speeds. It's louder and more annoying than a regular car.
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Sure, when you live in a parallel dimension you may think they are louder than a regular car. Unfortunately not at all on planet earth.
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> Laws that require backup noises make no sense and cause problems
Except they objectively do make sense and improve safety. The fact that there's unintended consequences at a heavily congested charging station doesn't change that. Though this is America we're talking about, I'm surprised pedestrian safety ranks anywhere at all on the Fucks-To-Give scale.
backup beepers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems like, with all that technology, they could turn off all that beeping and flashing while they're in the charging station area. This is not a real problem with no solution. There is a solution but no will power to implement it. I don't believe the charging equipment makes that much noise.
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> Seems like, with all that technology, they could turn off all that beeping and flashing while they're in the charging station area.
Good idea, but you'd also need a pretty robust safety verification mechanism, showing that the vehicles are indeed in an area where they can turn safety features off, with no humans accidentally in the area.
robot parking lot: no need for lights, sounds? (Score:4, Insightful)
if all the cars that are in the lot are all robotaxies, then why not just have them turn off the lights (they use lidar, after all, no lights needed), and also turn off the "back up beep beep beep" audio. no need for that when no human drivers are around.
there, problem solved.
i'm sure someone will step in and correct my misunderstanding, here. i AM pretty sure i must be missing something
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From here in my comfortable chair it's hard to judge how bad the situation is, vs. to what extent it might be a form of protest by somebody who just doesn't like self-driving cars. There has been vandalism and harassment of a few types, from setting them on fire to calling dozens of them to the same place at the same time to cause gridlock. In San Francisco there was a huge flap because a waymo ran over a cat.
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> From here in my comfortable chair it's hard to judge how bad the situation is, vs. to what extent it might be a form of protest by somebody who just doesn't like self-driving cars.
There's lots of video of one of the lots in question. Here's a good one where you can see one car backing up causing a chain reaction honk on all the others: [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Even if they legally can't disable the horns while in that lot, there's at least two simple things I can think of off the top of my head they could do to help mitigate it: The first would be redesigning that lot to be pull-through so that the cars don't ever have to back up. The second would be tweaking the algorithm
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jjs5xlZrnE
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She said they fixed it, but they'd have to, a month of that and someone is going postal and shoot every waymo in the lot ... justifiably.
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> why not just have them turn off the lights (they use lidar, after all, no lights needed), and also turn off the "back up beep beep beep" audio.
Because we don't want them to instantly kill the first kid who jumps the fence, or the next careless service technician. Automated industrial robots (which is what these cars are, really) have these things for a reason. The regulations requiring this stuff are all written in blood.
And because they require all of that stuff, having a lot full of them in a residential neighborhood makes no more sense than putting a bus depot or airport there does. Waymo should shove its "disruption" up its ass, eat the dea
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> if all the cars that are in the lot are all robotaxies, then why not just have them turn off the lights (they use lidar, after all, no lights needed), and also turn off the "back up beep beep beep" audio. no need for that when no human drivers are around.
ISTR reading someplace that they already did turn off the beeps within their depots... yep, [1]here. [spectrumnews1.com] Whether or not that's still in effect or what else is being complained about, I don't know.
Having grown up just outside the fence of an international airport, and lived in an apartment where I could reach out the window and touch passing metro trains, I get it. Living next to infrastructure kind of sucks.
If the infrastructure was there first, suck it up, you chose to live there. In this case, it looks like
[1] https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/southern-california/transportation/2025/07/29/waymo-cuts-beeping-at-santa-monica-charging-depot
The city has issued an order (Score:3, Insightful)
"The city has issued an order" and "it's unclear whether Waymo will comply".
Since when does Waymo get to decide if they'll comply with local laws or not?
Now the next step is to take them to court, shut their operation down completely and ban them from setting up shop again until or unless they show that they have figured out how to comply with the law.
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> Since when does Waymo get to decide if they'll comply with local laws or not?
When the "order" came from the City Council (legislature), the branch of the government that has no power interpreting or enforcing the law? You acknowledged it in your own post; that the city would need to sue the companies in court.
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> Since when does Waymo get to decide if they'll comply with local laws or not?
Who said law? Just because the city votes to consider you a public nuisance doesn't mean you've broken the law, especially when your activity was originally granted a permit for operation.
All the city has done is sent a letter. Waymo is free not to comply. If they don't the city will need to actually take legal action and convince a judge that their opinion is worth more than the permit granted for them to operate before any "law" is in effect.
Just put some nails over the charging spots (Score:2)
They'll soon get the message.
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> They'll soon get the message.
The only person who will get a message is you, one from the police and the courts for sabotage / damage of property.
I'm not sure why you think vigilante justice will work out in anyone's favour other than the group being targeted. Are you new to planet earth?
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> I'm not sure why you think vigilante justice will work out in anyone's favour other than the group being targeted. Are you new to planet earth?
[1]It does in Gotham! [discourse-cdn.com]
[1] https://global.discourse-cdn.com/boingboing/optimized/3X/5/8/58b6b0236f49c16a749a55d05f9c93ac83b7ee27_2_690x266.gif
street justice is real (Score:2)
When you send in an army of robots that annoy humans, and you refuse to hear what the humans have to say about that, then you are subject to street justice. You probably won't like street justice, better to be friendly to your future customers up front.
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And just make the parking spots all pull-through so there is no backing. I know this takes forethought and all.
Profits First (Score:2)
> charging depots need to be close to service areas to minimize deadhead miles
No, they don't. It just costs less. The idea that creating a public nuisance is acceptable if it will enhance your profits is modern corporations at work.
Bad zoning laws (Score:1)
Really it is up to Santa Monica to zone the usage correctly. It's a hindsight 20/20 on letting the charging station be built in an area where it seems useful and isn't obviously near anyone. But in reality there are a ton of apartments just behind the lot.
For people not familiar with the area, Broadway is a main road with like schools, strip malls, and some apartment complexes. But there are smaller streets around the area, like the one the big parking lot full of chargers is loaded, and those have lots of
Re: Bad zoning laws (Score:1)
and the reverse beeping and flashing keeping people from sleeping i would lose my mind and have to move; but most people cant just up and do that waymo needs to sound insulate all the machinery; install multistory sound walls (that will unfortunately also block sunlight ans view from those apartments; and get a legal carveout on autonomous driving regulations so that the cars can not beep at all at night when reversing; or beep much more quietly so you can only hear it from a few feet away those people s
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Dude, learn about punctuation if you want to be understood.
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he had 4 semi colons in there! /s
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For you having an understanding of the area but not the issues. The main complaints are the noise, in particular the backup warning beeping that are required for operations. These beeps have been captured on decibel meters as hitting 112 dBA!
For reference, Santa Monica has had excessive noise ordiances on the books that the limit is for 50 dBA (for up to 15 minutes) or 55 dBA (for up to 5 minutes) between 10pm and 7am. Being that the decibel levels are a logarithmic scale, 112 dbA is actually over 100,000