When walking along an Austin nature path, you might assume that any buzzing sound might be cicadas, but it seems there’s an increasing possibility that it may instead be power generators for a tech company. That’s what one person walking along Lady Bird Lake encountered recently.
According to the video on Reddit, what appears to be a propane truck operated by Apollo Energy Resources is supplying fuel to an array of L-Charge generators used to charge a fleet of adjacent Waymo autonomous vehicles. And it’s all happening right across from a walking path.
“I don’t know if you can hear the noise,” BoroPaul says in the video. “But it’s really f–king loud. And this is what Google has given Austin in return for their healthy, electric nonsense vehicles.
“I’m going to shout so you’re able to hear me over this ‘Fast-charge your EV fleet’ bollocks.”
Suffice to say, Austin Reddit is not amused. “Just stand there and get everybody walking by to sign your petition, you’ll have it signed within a few hours,” wrote one person. “These generators are totally unacceptable and ruin the peace. It’s ridiculous noise pollution,” responded another.
The Alphabet Inc.-owned company has been testing autonomous vehicles in Austin since 2015 but officially started offering rides through the Uber app last year. The service also launched in Houston and San Antonio in February, although it was temporarily paused in San Antonio after issues with floodwaters.
In response to the above complaints, an Uber spokesman told Chron that “Uber remains committed to being a good neighbor in all of the communities in which we operate. We are utilizing this temporary charging solution to serve Austin riders while we are in the process of building a permanent grid-connected site to support vehicle charging.”
They added that custom sound barriers were installed for each charging unit on Friday, which they say should address any noise concerns.
The generators are from L-Charge, a company seperate from Waymo that offers mobile charging stations for electric vehicles. “All in one EV Fleet charging service. You charge – we take care of permitting, maintenance and servicing,” their website reads.
It’s not clear if the generators are breaking the city’s noise ordinance rules, which generally limits it to 75 decibels in residential areas and 85 decibels on business property, though permitted exceptions are made. Chron reached out to the City of Austin and will update the article when we hear back.
It remains to be seen whether the fixes stem a bit of the noise in the area, but at the moment, no passersby are confusing it for anything other than that familiar generator sound.