They are running on LNG with is nowhere close to as polluting as Diesel. In fact it is the same chemical compound CH4 that is used to make electricity for charging most electric vehicles and powering your home. The alternative is to have gasoline powered cabs running around town or Ubers with ICE engines which idle at stop signs. So this is way better for the environment than the alternative. The goal is progress not perfection. Now for the noise, I agree that needs to be rectified. Quieter gensets or sound walls or a completely different location would be a good idea.
I think these are in place for other purposes beside transport. A roof mounted battery of cameras providing 360 degrees of coverage seems a bit more than needed just for navigating traffic.
There also seems to be an awful lot of empty Waymos wandering around. I'm not sure how running around empty most of the time is an economically sustainable business model, especially since the supply seems to be far in excess of demand. Of course, if these are also being used for patrol and surveillance purposes - perhaps funded by a grant from DHS - maybe the self-driving taxi business is a secondary concern. Who knows? Maybe Waymos will be the grandfathers of the ground-based HKs from The Terminator.
All the people from Austin all still call it Town Lake but officially it was changed to Ladybird Lake. It's one way you can tell original Austinites from transplants.
You found the right people when you got here 😂 blend in. I’ll co-sign that for you. Born in Kerrville, but parents moved here in 88, when I was 9 months old so I’m sort of in native limbo. Not technically native but like, mostly. I like the name Ladybird but it just feels so formal to call it that it makes me feel weird.
She also never wanted it named after her. She always refused when they tried. So they waited until she died and couldn't refuse anymore. I kinda feel weird about that lol. Town Lake for me.
Menchaca is Spanish, but the springs were not named that. Was a Choctaw word imshaka and shows up elsewhere as Manchac. Hence "manshack", to the point where it's even spelled that way in a lot of 19th century writings. Like it's a little revisionist to just decide Menchaca across the board.
that's the ONLY name it should ever go by. Lady Bird never wanted it named after her, but the mayor at the time, Bruce Todd, didn't care and pushed to name it after her anyway
Nah, it’s Austin. The city will tell them to cut it out and then they’ll go buy a state legislator to make it illegal for the city to tell them anything. It’s the Texas way.
It was a Republican Party mantra and doctrine back in the 1990s when elections were more competitive. The idea was that "Austin" ("those Democrats") was/were always bossing around your towns and suburbs. Republicans convinced everyone they'd let local governments set their own priorities and regulations.
You don't hear much about it anymore, after Rick Perry took over from GW Bush as Governor.
The company L-charge that runs these chargers has the slogan: "You charge - we take care of permitting, maintenance and servicing". Getting permits is literally their job. https://l-charge.net/charging-as-a-service/
None as of September 2025. Cities can no longer regulate them in Texas if less than 50kw. Trade permits required though for service connections to gas or electrical.
Cities can no longer regulate them in Texas if less than 50kw.
If the limit is 50kW, these generators are gonna be pulling MUCH more than 50kW. Fast chargers for EVs basically start at 50kW for the lowest end. If there's a fleet of 10-20 of them charging, the charging rate is going to be past 1MW pretty easily. The Jaguars that Waymo uses can top out at ~100kW each.
A regular temporary generator, no, but this scale probably requires a hazardous materials permit due to the tanker truck of refrigerated methane fuel and fire marshal inspection/approval since there is no permanent approved storage solution for the fuel.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this, I absolutely hate it, it ruins the peaceful walk on the trail!
It's literally the worst place to put this, this is prime Austin real estate, there are so many other empty places that would be much better suited for this.
I'm not sure what they can do about it when the state is the only authority to regulate what AV companies can do. I'm 2017 the state took away any right to regulate by local municipalities.
The fact that none of the local news media got wind of this, on the freaking old Statesman site, is evidence that we need more exposure to citizen journalists. Who are the prolific non-paid journalists around here to follow?
This may get buried in the comments, but it’s important to point out: the city approved this site for housing, but they were sued by the Save our Springs alliance to stop it.
There two lawsuits, actually. One on the housing plan (which the city won) and one on the funding plan for the infrastructure (which SoS won). Obviously you need infrastructure like roads to build housing.
So the land owners leased it to a battery plant. You can thank the likes of NIMBYs and Save our Springs for what we’re seeing there today.
SOS used to do important work, but now they just shill for the wealthy NIMBYs in single-family homes. They’re all for affordable housing and diversity just as long as it doesn’t touch their neighborhood.
(Looking at you, Bill Bunch - who’s all too happy to hire former Greg Abbot staff to lobby against affordable housing at the Legislature…)
I think most of the "environmental lobby" at this point is actively working against the environment (preventing transmission projects for renewables, preventing dense housing, preventing ANY industrial development that will be net positive).
Hi. I have a genuine confusion/thought to share. I thought NIMBY was generally people who don’t want projects that they perceive as undesirable and damaging to their sanitized suburban lifestyles - where they’re like “yes that’s totally an important thing but surely not in MY good neighborhood” but Save our Springs is an ecological conservation project, and construction along waterways and sensitive environments is relevant and I could see there being legit reasons not to want to further develop this land. I’m not sure that this is an appropriate term to use with SOS. But I could be wrong and I’d like to hear other people’s thoughts about it!
Also, I’m sure SOS wouldn’t like this current use either, right?
SOS started off meaning well and the SOS ordinance is something I strongly support. They strayed from their ostensible mission several decades ago and functionally use ecological motivations as a front for NIMBYism. A prime example is their opposition to the Brodie Oaks redevelopment. One of the lines was "this is a sensitive area and once you build over it, it can never be undone" and they use similar language for this site. Keep in mind, the Brodie Oaks site is mostly parking lot that creates runoff into Barton Creek. Redevelopment would reduce the amount of impervious cover, and create biofiltration ponds to catch runoff from the remaining impervious cover before it reaches the creek. The site was built before the SOS ordinance so is not in compliance. SOS thinks anything short of rewilding the plot is unacceptable. The Statesman PUD is also mostly parking lot with similar environmental context. Redevelopment would provide modern water filtration, parkland, and thousands of homes near downtown on a major public transit corridor instead of paving over acres of the Hill Country for the same amount of houses, furthering car dependence which frankly, affects the aquifers that feed our springs significantly more than anything they oppose building within central Austin.
It’s mostly people that don’t want anything to change because it frightens or scares them. They don’t really think that far ahead. For example poder is fighting really hard for an industrial site to stay an industrial site and not get remediated and developed into sustainable housing and mix use. Basically old people and people who already have their homes use these various groups and anti-capitalist rhetoric in order to just try to keep things from changing. They have zero consideration for the way that restricting supply as demand goes up increases prices for everyone.
I’m very confused about this connection too. I have a friend here who is a very kind and understand tech bro who helped me understand what BASE is and does and I’m at a loss for this connection.
I didn’t run the full trail (ran shoal creek today) so I’m not sure where this is unless I missed it by the statesman?) but I’m invested because eff anything related to data centers or water draining.
Data centersa aren't going to be built along Lady Bird Lake or in other expensive and desirable areas. They'll be out in the country or along interstates.
No one should be surprised either, it's weird how many people here in this sub support this company. Then again reddit is full of bots and maybe most of them are.
They need to charge in the urban core to provide low emission vehicle solutions for transportation to people who don't own gas guzzling cars. Transmission projects are far more expensive, and get blocked by NIMBYs.
A location that has batteries (that can time shift renewables) and is supplemented by methane generation is orders of magnitude better for the environment than gas powered ubers?
So, Austin does have a noise ordinance. I had them come out as Spectrum was running a large generator for weeks across the street and successfully got them to change (city comes out and actually measures decibels). For example cannot exceed 85 db outside property lines 10 am-2am. There are lower limits in residential areas (I think 50 db which was exceeded on my property by one generator). There are also temporary permits for construction. City Code Chapter 9-2. I advise lots and lots of people call or email their council representative; noise levels CAN cause hearing damage. Now I am curious how loud it is, but I suspect wnough complaints might work. I used a free app which seemed to correspond pretty well with what the city measured.
Looks like Waymo generates their own power. These are biogas generators, also known as gas gensets. They are essentially a piston engine driving an electric generator. Since these are large engines, they are very noisy. Waymo is probably using them because they do not get enough power into downtown. I used to architect datacenters, we installed batteries of up to 5MW gensets as grid backup. - but they only would run in case power feeds would fail. I always was looking forward when we tested them - you think a tornado is approaching. I would expect these to be temporary.
Yeah they're definitely fucking temporary. Trucking in cryogenic methane to power local generators is not a long term plan. This entire setup basically exists for this purpose. To do something while you wait for proper infrastructure to come online. Or, as you have pointed out, as redundancy for mission critical systems.
These are L-Chargers. https://l-charge.net/charging-as-a-service/ Looks like that these are not even owned by Waymo, but Waymo only pays for the charging. The Russians run an LNG network to fuel locomotive through Siberia. The engines are electric with LNG fueled turbines as prime movers. CoA probably would have not approved Waymo run Diesel gensets.
Yep, in this case the main role of L-charge is being the scapegoat so Waymo can say they weren't involved in creating this mess. L-charge's slogan is "You charge - we take care of permitting, maintenance and servicing"
Seems like a good time to remind everyone austin energy still owns and operates 3 natural gas (Methane) plants. One in Del valley, one in Mueller and one in far east austin at the city limit. A quarter of austin power generation comes from burning methane and coal (in Feyette)
Typical. In Austin’s conventional wisdom, quiet places are frowned upon. Constant noise is a hallmark of a “vibrant city”, and quiet is code for “boring.”
This city willfully allows practically everything above the level of work a residential homeowner might do.
In that case, though...get ready for CODE ENFORCEMENT and the one person who works in the whole office to eventually find your shit and do something with it. Maybe.
the noise is bad but the hazard is the transfer of liquid methane out in public.
that’s a huge hazard.
accidents can happen.
there’s no way to put that out if it ignites/explodes.
They are liquified farts - literally. It is biogas, and it stored liquid, just like propane. Burns very clean into C02 and H20, which is why they are using it over diesel.
I usually call 311 when there is a commercial vehicle parked on the residential streets of my neighborhood, without legitimate purpose. For example, U-Haul has a habit of doing this when their own parking lot is overflowing. The City of Austin acknowledges that this is an illegal use of residential streets.
I'm pro waymo but yeah something noisy like that shouldn't be there. It could be that they already have plans to move it, worth checking on that -- if not they should make plans ASAP.
Burning methane actually reduces its greenhouse gas impact. While methane itself is a highly potent heat-trapping gas, the combustion process converts it into water and carbon dioxide. Because carbon dioxide has a much lower global warming potential than methane, this conversion effectively decreases the warming impact by about 96.4%.
Where exactly would you like it? Next to your house, where you sleep? Someone else's, because fuck them, right? Just switch them all to gas, diesel or some other fosdil fuel? Or perhaps on a centrally located piece of property the city owns that inconveniences you just for the moment you stroll past it? Get over yourself, princess, there's got to be a cost for sll the progress somewhere. This seems like a small one.
Brother, the entire crown is jeweled. If its not here, it will be somewhere next to another jewel because all the city owned land is a park somewhere. Also, having an entire fleet of cars operating mostly downtown that have to ingress and egress from the area to fuel/charge, adds to the chokepoints all around downtown where people are trying to get to or from this area.
I don’t think anything like this would fall under a zoning ordinance for a commercial or industrial tract. Especially as it’s not a permanent install. The Health Dept. and the Fire Marshall, and maybe the Watershed Protection Dept. would seemingly be the only ones with any sort of City Jurisdiction, and that would be a stretch. Besides this pales in comparison to the 3.6 million S.F. of redevelopment that is “imminent.”
So much for clean electric vehicles. This is a carbon emitting monster compromising the health of everyone near it. How the F did they get a permit to operate in this space? What's the address? Is the location zoned industrial?
I think we should also get this churning on social media and shame Alphabet, who claims to care about the environment, into forcing their wayward son to be better.
This is a carbon emitting monster compromising the health of everyone near it.
The way our grid works, every time you charge another Waymo, a natural gas burner burns a little more natgas than it would if you didn't charge that Waymo. There is enough demand to use all the solar and electric MWh whether you charge the Waymo or not. The loss here is that those generators are probably considerably less carbon efficient than regular grid-connected power plants.
I'll also throw out that carbon per passenger mile in a Waymo is probably still less than a gasoline powered car. Maybe. It's not zero carbon by any means.
Yeah, this generator setup downtown DOES really suck.
I assure you, the carbon release form these small methane powered generators will be higher than full-scale natural gas generators at plants.
I agree that regardless of whether it's charging Waymos or powering multiacre data centers, if the grid has insufficient power to support these projects, the answer should not be much smaller, much more carbon emitting small generation sites. Of course, no one in our existing Texas government will put any regulatory requirements in place preventing the smaller generation sites from being used and the result will be that consumers will pay more for energy and suffer harm from pollutants. Our Texas government sucks.
Absolutely true, but a grid supplying generator is usually a combined cycle, multi-stage setup with exhaust scrubbers that is vastly more efficient than a single cycle portable generator with an open exhaust.
It would have been vastly better for the environment and the city for Waymo to tap off of the existing Statesman building grid connection to power their chargers. I'd need to pull the permit, but I bet it already has a MV connection with plenty of amperage to run EV chargers since they used to house industrial printing presses.
This is what happens when you open up the city for tech bros to use as they wish for experiments that will make them billions of dollars richer. This started more than a decade ago when the state began giving tech companies tax breaks to move to Texas. Now they all own Abbott and Texas in general.
Y’all need to relax. If you wanna make a difference, tell the city of Austin to grant the permits that they need to construct a permanent charging station. The problem is the city of Austin and Austin Energy will take forever to permit it. I’m sure Waymo has no interest whatsoever in charging their cars with liquid methane or whatever this is, but they’re waiting for the city and the utility to permit a permanent charging solution.
Austin Energy actively campaigns against batteries. I just moved here but was horrified to see how their billing model works that would have penalized me for deploying batteries with my planned solar (and therefore bought a house in PEC instead).
Austin is Pro TALKING about the environment, their actual actions are abunch of old NIMBY hippies who are working against green energy transformation.
I have first hand experience about how long it takes to permit a large EV fast charging site in Austin and regardless of the “pro-EV” position these take 12+ months to permit and get utility capacity allocated to them.
No vote, but the Statesman site was actually supposed to be redeveloped into a mixed-use development with parkland. But Save Our Springs (formerly an environmental organization, but now an all-purpose NIMBY org) sued to stop it. Now it's a battery plant.
The sound is from the mobile diesel generators. That suggests it’s a temporary power need. Hopefully they’ll be able to replace those with a more permanent power source.
Waymo needs to go. I’m sick and tired of them clogging up downtown and nearly causing accidents. Every time I see a Waymo, no one is in it! I haven’t personally met anyone who’s taken one. Can we get them out of our town somehow???
Why is this labeled as a shitpost? Is any of this information inaccurate, or misconstrued in a manner as to twist the narrative for either the lulz or otherwise?
When are y’all gonna wake up and realize Texas doesn’t give 2 fucks about you. It’s all about making a dollar, and it’s the politicians who allow this. Whatever tf this is…the MANY data centers popping up… the draining/contamination of our natural water supplies. We already have like hardly any public lands compared to most other states. Stop acting surprised.
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u/GreenAguacate May 16 '26
That’s disgusting, can we sign a petition to take them out of there