Electric cars have to make noise on purpose because otherwise it would be a silent car. And most of these noises are are weird futuristic WEEEE-00000 UFO sounds. Therefore I posit that we should be able to change the noises our electric cars make
EDIT: These suggestions are Top-Notch! Keep em coming!
They’re the same for safety. People need to build a subconscious mental model of what a car sounds like so they can be safe as pedestrians and cyclists.
If there were 1000 different sounds, that mental model would never form.
I always wanted to mod my car so the stereo plays different pod-racer sounds depending on rpm, but it never got past the idea phase. Wonder if you could do the same for EV’s
really loud bubbles.
“silent car”
lmao nope those things are loud as fuck because of the tires and weight
The sound from a car is mostly tire noise.
True but that’s not relevant.
So we need noisemakers on gas and EV cars.
Yes because drivers of EVs hit pedestrians and this helps save lives.
If cars (EV and gas) are travelling at road speed, tires are the loudest sound. If cars (EV and gas) are traveling at very reduced speed, neither make a sound. I have no idea what you are talking about.
The engine and everything in an ICE car make sound at reduced speed. It’s not the loudest on new cars but its still like 40db. I have no idea what you are talking about.
I’m saying a gas car travelling at low speed doesn’t make a sound. Does it help if I repeat myself?
That’s wrong. It very much makes sound.
Not when you’re going slow
Then I don’t hear them at all.
That’s how they sneak up on you.
F=forward, R=reverse, D=Don’t move.
F= fast, R= real fast D= dangerously fast.
TIL nobody listens to their environment while they walk outside.
can nobody else hear the sound of the tires on the pavement? or can nobody else hear the sound of the environment being reflected differently off the cars coming down the road?
When you’re habituated to the sound of ICE engines, if you’re not focused on your environment, the quieter tire sounds absolutely can sneak up on you.
And when you’re just strolling, it’s pretty natural for your attention to wander. Just because you can hear something doesn’t mean you’ll notice something.
sounds like a pedestrian problem. just because you’re walking doesn’t absolve you from remaining attentive to the flow of traffic just as much, if not more, than when driving.
In 50+ years I have never had a vehicle sneak up on me. no car, no motorcycle, no bicycle.
I live outside of the US in a very walkable urban area, so this comment is breaking my brain.
“Hit by a car!? What a jay!” You sound like a 1900’s baron.🧐 Go live in car city and kiss cars and suck tailpipe since you love them so much!
Congratulations!
The rest of us, flawed creatures that we are, sometimes slip - we may even think we’re actively attending to our environment while also chatting, thinking, or paying attention to something else. It’s a shortcut our brains take: when they get accustomed to things working (or sounding) one way, they’ll focus on those cues instead of other, potentially subtler, cues. Even if we’re actively trying not to
In suburbia, sure.
In the town centre, there’s so many vehicles around that it’s very easy for an electric vehicle to creep up on you.
Is your argument that we should make these vehicles quieter because you personally don’t experience this issue?
no, my argument is that it doesn’t matter what sound it makes as long as it makes a sound.
pedestrians need to be more aware of their surroundings, this doesn’t absolve drivers either.
pedestrians often just blindly assume because they have the right of way that means they don’t have to pay attention, and that’s how they die.
Completely impractical. Standardise noises for warnings. I’m not going to react to the sound of Nyan Cat played on the Bagpipes and think “oh that’s a car coming”.
Also, pedestrians DO have the right of way. How do I know? I got hit by a driver at night in the rain, with his lights off, coasting in neutral. Couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see him. Court settled in my favour.
Also, pedestrians DO have the right of way.
I wasn’t arguing that. pedestrians DO have the right of way, but that doesn’t absolve them from ensuring their own safety. just because you have the right of way in a vehicle when the light is green doesn’t mean you just floor it and hope for the best.
How do I know? I got hit by a driver at night in the rain, with his lights off, coasting in neutral. Couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see him. Court settled in my favour.
now imagine how much better you’d feel if you were a bit more attentive to your surroundings! no splashy splash of the wheels on pavement? no bouncy bounce of the rain off the car? you were probably distracted by trying to stay dry.
100% of all accidents are caused by a lack of information that could have been resolved by better observation.
You don’t have right of way in a vehicle when the light is green - pedestrians still have right of way.
There was no “splash splashy of wheels on the pavement” because the car was in the road, not the pavement.
There were plenty of “splashy splashy” noises around, because there were lots of vehicles. The “bouncy bounce” of rain on that car was easily confused with the “bouncy bounce” of rain of every other car/surface/building/person in the area.
I’m not sure if you’re intentionally being moronic, or if you genuinely feel like you know more about the situation of my accident than I do. The fact remains that electric vehicles shouldn’t simply be able to make some random noise. They need to be audible and recognisable to prevent accidents.
tell me. how would the outcome of your accident change if you were deaf?
I bet you would be much more observant if you couldn’t hear anything.
I’m not deaf.
We’re digressing from the original disagreement
no, my argument is that it doesn’t matter what sound it makes as long as it makes a sound.
I believe it is important for vehicles to sound like vehicles, so they can be easily identified. They shouldn’t be randomly changed by their owner to something whimsical.
I’m of two minds about this. On one hand, I could drive a car that makes a TIE fighter sound, or the time machine DeLorean from Back to the Future.
On the other hand, someone could have their car make the Dumb and Dumber “most annoying sound in the world,” or just one long continuous wet fart, or pro-fascist propaganda. Or worse, something completely silent and incredibly dangerous.
Maybe if you could download special sound packs, like you can for GPSes. I bet Lucasfilm and Universal would go for that.
Silent is actually the easy one, for many EVs you can just pull the fuse for the noise maker. It was pretty cool rolling down our driveway in a near completely silent car, but it felt very wrong, immediately replaced the fuse.
I question the need for a noise sometimes. My son has a 2001 Tahoe that is dead silent and has caused him to try to start it with it running a few times. Meanwhile if I start my car it’s loud enough to wake the dead (at least until it idles down), different strokes for different folks I guess.
I’m not suggesting the following is standard, but the specific sound my car makes allows for people to not just hear the car, but to also know what direction the sound is coming from. The sound is engineered this way.
Compare this with those utility trucks that have those signature “reverse/backing up” (beep…beep…beep) sounds. You can hear it, but it’s almost impossible to tell from what direction. It’s been a complaint by blind people, and there’s still worker incidents where they step into a moving path of a vehicle despite the sound.
You can even make sounds that work against this technique. Home audio systems use directional audio to give the effect of sounds being in certain locations. I wouldn’t want people to be able to change a car sound to something that is more dangerous.
I think that’s what the static sound is for. It doesn’t have a broken speaker it’s easier to hear where the truck is at
Under 20 I want choo-choo train noise, 20-50 would be tie fighter noise, over 50 flight of the valkyries.
I wish I could change the sound on mine. When we reverse it sounds like a Temu TARDIS.
Mine has selections but no option to use my own.
Since the sounds are to meet regulatory requirements, I doubt you’ll see ability to use arbitrary noises, at least for the exterior noise.
Good point, the sounds car companies use probably have to be approved by regulators.
I disconnected the noise maker in my car. I want it to be silent. That’s one of the selling points.
If you’re in the US federal law requires EVs to emit sounds while going under about 20 mph so pedestrians and cyclists can hear them approach. If you ever hit anybody who steps into the street because they couldn’t hear you, you’ll be in deep doggie doodoo.
If I hit somebody that steps into the street then it’s my fault no matter what. Doesn’t matter whether they could hear me. Besides, most people wear earbuds when walking around town.
Guess how that plays out insurance wise. Whatever liability coverage you think you have, forget it if you willfully disabled legally mandated safety features. Even if it’s a motor vehicle accident where the noise wouldn’t have realistically made a difference, even if the other party is at fault in practical terms, if they find out your car safety features were tampered with you could be on the hook without help of insurance.
Not true, young padawan. I personally hit a jaywalker one time and didn’t even get a traffic citation. She was crossing against the light, at night, in a pounding rain, and apparently hadn’t bothered to look. I wasn’t quite able to stop in time. Witnesses confirmed my story and contradicted hers (that she was in the crosswalk with the light in her favor). If somebody disables their own hearing it’s on them, but if they claimed not to hear you and your car was in fact not making any sound because you disabled it (in violation of federal law) it would be on you.
If I hit somebody that steps into the street then it’s my fault no matter what.
This is not at all true. If someone steps out in front of you with little or no time for you to react, they’re just as much at fault. It will be much easier to argue that you’re to blame, when you’ve intentionally disabled the saftey device that would have alerted them to your presence though.
Even if it was true however: Just because it would be your fault doesn’t mean you should increase the chances of it happening.
Besides, most people wear earbuds when walking around town.
This is entirely your own false perception. Many if not most people don’t wear headphones near traffic, or at least only wear one, so that they can still hear their suroundings.
Regardless; Some people choosing to blockout sounds is no excuse for you putting everyone else in danger.
You should fix this, or you should be cited for willful public endangerment and the vehicle towed+impounded.
What the fuck?
I initially thought that too since there are a lot of fun sci-fi sounds that would work. Ufortunately, some people would probably ruin the fun by using that feature to disable the sound instead.
It should be you HAVE to choose A noise and it gives options; they’d need to be pre-installed or require a visit to the dealer because it can’t be “silent” noise. And if it’s found, people should ask, “do I need to call the cops? Any mystery drive-bys in the hood?”
Did you know silence can be detected in software? The volume can be normalized too across frequencies that matter. Requiring the dealer or manufacturer is room for enshittification.
Which is why it can’t happen for a safety mandated feature.
It obviously needs to be the Jetson’s sound
