Santa Monica, California, city officials ordered Waymo to halt charging operations overnight at two facilities in the neighborhood. Residents have complained about self-driving taxis returning to their homes at night to charge, causing constant beeps and noise from the charging equipment. It raises a crucial question: As the range of autonomous vehicles expands, where are they supposed to charge them near their service areas without disturbing local people?

If you live near Broadway and 14th Street in Santa Monica, California, it seems like you haven’t been getting a very restful sleep lately.

This area is also home to two charging hubs for the fast-growing self-driving taxi service Waymo, and is where neighbors have been dealing with nightly disturbances for months. As autonomous vehicles returned home from driving shifts, local residents were exposed to constant beeping from rear sensors, noise from charging equipment, cleaning, traffic congestion, and flashing lights, according to local news reports. Up to 56 autonomous vehicles are reportedly being shipped at the two sites.

But residents achieved a victory over their autonomous neighbor this week. The Santa Monica City Council voted unanimously to order Waymo to halt overnight shipping operations at overseas warehouses. “The City has received numerous complaints from nearby residents regarding the Broadway Yards, particularly that the nightly operations of the Yards disrupt their sleep, peace, quiet, and enjoyment of their homes,” city officials wrote in a letter to the Google-owned audio and video service.

It’s unclear whether Waymo or its charging operator, Virginia-based Volterra, intend to comply.

Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times reported that neither had planned, saying city officials had misunderstood existing permit rights. “In response to neighbors’ feedback, we have modified our on-site operations, and will continue to seek community input,” Waymo officials told the newspaper without addressing the matter directly.

But with the autonomous vehicle industry about to reach critical mass in 2025, the Santa Monica noise dispute raises a bigger question all these players must answer: Where are all these cars supposed to charge, and how can they do so without disturbing their neighbors?

In theory, the ideal place for dozens — and perhaps eventually hundreds or even thousands — of self-driving vehicles is to park them in some remote warehouse filled with fast DC chargers and away from houses and apartments where their sounds, flashing lights and traffic could disrupt local residents. But the name of any ride-hailing game is minimizing mileage: the distance traveled without any passengers on board, which means no revenue generated.

Then you add the challenges of losing scale. Autonomous vehicles are mostly electric vehicles, so if their charging depots are too far from their service area, they are operating at a disadvantage in terms of overall driving range. (And the same might be true if these were gas-powered cars, when you think about it.) So, the AV industry should want to locate charging locations as close to the cities it serves as possible.

But it is clear that doing so in some residential neighborhoods is not the ideal solution. Not when you hear what Santa Monica residents deal with every night between 11pm and 6am. According to KTLA, local law enforcement was involved with at least one person who “attempted to disrupt operations at the facilities” on several occasions. In other words, people are clearly very angry about this.

Photography: CBS Los Angeles

This isn’t the first time autonomous vehicle operators, and Waymo specifically, have been cited as a public nuisance in one of the many cities they now serve. Last year, residents of San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood said they were besieged by Waymos honking at each other while trying to park themselves at a parked station — sometimes as early as 4 a.m. More recently, Palo Alto residents have complained about entire Waymo caravans moving through normally quiet residential neighborhoods. In San Francisco’s inner-Richmond neighborhood, neighbors put up signs pleading with people not to call Waymos in the evening, saying their noise had become unbearable.

But extra crowding is one thing. Figuring out where to put AV charging so it doesn’t completely disturb the neighbors is a different kind of challenge. Noise from any public electric vehicle charging site can be annoying to people living nearby. But the nuisance problem associated with Waymo’s charging sites is distinctly different from the typical noise of a single EV charger, since it’s intended to serve dozens (or more) of autonomous vehicles that are meant to be in continuous, around-the-clock service.

Waymo clearly isn’t slowing down its expansion efforts, so this may be an issue that needs a Google-style hack solution sooner rather than later.

Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com

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Elon Musk urges Tesla shareholders to participate in the next annual meeting of the company, describing the vote decisively not only for the auto industry but it is likely to be the world.

“This vote on the shareholders decides the future of Tesla and may affect the future of the world,” Musa has published X, with a focus on the importance of the proposals that will be voted at at the next meeting on November 6, 2025.

A pivotal turning point

In a letter from her official account, Tesla described herself as a “critical turning point” where she is preparing for her annual meeting. The shareholders will soon receive voting instructions, as the company requires investors to support the recommendations of the Board of Directors regarding all proposals. The post also referred to the main plan in Tesla, the fourth part, which determines the ambitious growth goals through vehicles, energy and artificial intelligence.

“Tesla at a critical turning point. We need your vote before our annual meeting of 2025 on November 6. Tesla shareholders will soon receive our company’s owners, control and vote numbers from their brokers. This will enable you to vote.

The company also highlighted that it is currently on a “huge wave of transformational growth”. Tesla emphasized that the confidence in the Music leadership is essential in this path, because he is the CEO who can lead Tesla to his ambitious new age.

Some major proposals

Two proposals are highlighted in Tesla recommendations, according to the company’s Fottesla.com website. The first seeks to amend the 2019 stock incentive plan from Elon Musk, creating a special reserve from about 208 million shares to grant the Board of Directors flexibility amid the continuous litigation of the 2018 Executive Performance Award in Musk. It also calls for renewing public shares reserves with 60 million additional shares, ensuring the ability to grant employee shares.

“The stocks are the cornerstone of Tesla’s compensation philosophy. We believe that we need a framework that allows us to honor the deal that we justified with Elon and the extraordinary value that he created for Tesla shareholders under the 2018 CEO performance award.

The second suggestion is the CEO of 2025 CEO, which is a paid performance framework that links Musk compensation to reach the maximum ambitious market and operational monuments. Under the plan, Musk will not earn something that Tesla has not achieved unusual results, which may create more than $ 7 trillion of shareholders ’value and pay the company’s evaluation to 8.5 trillion dollars. The company also asked shareholders to vote for the re -election of three managers: Era Erenbress, Joe Giba, and Cathlein Wilson Thompson.

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General Motors is recalling all-wheel-drive versions of the 2025 Chevrolet Equinox EV due to adaptive cruise control systems that may fail to apply the brakes when needed.

The recall of 2,890 electric vehicles is in response to a software issue, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). An “incorrect software calibration” of the brake control module prevents the adaptive cruise control system from applying the brakes. The system may still try to slow the vehicle by cutting off power, but this may not be enough to avoid an accident.

NHTSA noted that drivers can still apply the brakes manually, but they may not receive enough warning to slow the vehicle in time to avoid a collision. Therefore, drivers of affected vehicles must be more vigilant when using adaptive cruise control, and be prepared to press the brake pedal.

2025 Chevrolet Equinox EV

The recall covers 2025 all-wheel-drive models that don’t have the more advanced Super Cruise system, which increases automation enough to allow hands-free driving on stretches of road that are adequately marked. GM told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that it is not aware of any accidents or injuries related to the software issue in the affected vehicles.

Dealers will install updated brake control module software to fix the problem for free. GM noted that some unsold vehicles will also receive the over-the-air software update, adding that all affected vehicles remain under warranty, so customer compensation will not be necessary.

2025 Chevrolet Equinox EV

GM expects to notify owners by mail starting March 3. In the meantime, owners can also call Chevy’s customer service department at 800-222-1020 and quote recall number N242481530 for more information.

This is the second recent recall of the 2025 Equinox EV. In December 2024, GM is recalling 7,606 of its electric crossovers because federally mandated pedestrian warning systems may be too quiet. The Equinox EV was launched as a 2024 model, but the 2025 model brought additional configurations, including a $34,995 version with 319 miles of EPA range that finally delivered on the crossover’s value promise.

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The Fisker Ocean has been recalled again, this time due to an issue that could lead to an unexpected decrease in regenerative braking.

The recall covers 7,745 2023 and 2024 Ocean electric SUVs (the only two Ocean models sold before Fisker filed for bankruptcy). According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, software issues in these vehicles could reduce regenerative braking when decelerating over bumps.

Fisker Ocean 2023

Drivers can still access the friction brakes, and they reset to “normal operation” after 740 milliseconds, according to recall documents. However, drivers may have to press the brake pedal unexpectedly due to the reduced regeneration rate. Fisker is aware of one injury related to this issue.

Fisker will issue an over-the-air software update to address this issue. It plans to send notice letters to owners on October 14, 2024, but in the meantime, owners can contact Fisker customer service at 1-844-347-5371. Fisker’s reference number for this recall is TSB10062408.

Fisker Ocean 2023

This is the fifth Ocean recall in its short production run, though only three of the recalls apply to 2023 and 2024 models. That includes a recall of 8,204 vehicles in the U.S. to address stuck door handles that could prevent doors from opening. Assembly and some development work has been contracted to Magna, which built the Ocean at its facility in Graz, Austria, along with the also-discontinued Jaguar I-Pace.

Production was slow to ramp up, and once it did, slowing sales left Fisker vulnerable. In July, the bankrupt automaker asked the judge overseeing its Chapter 11 proceedings for permission to sell the remaining cars to a leasing company for $14,000 each. In a postmortem, Green Car Reports found that the Ocean was frozen in beta, with a sleek design but incomplete tech features due to software updates that may never come.

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