Audi Gives Silent Electric Car Synthetic Sound 402
itwbennett writes "Audi's electric cars are quiet, maybe too quiet, which is why Audi spent 3 years creating replicated engine noise for its electric car models. We're so conditioned to the noise of an engine revving that a driver behind the wheel of a too-quiet car may not realize how fast he's driving, and a pedestrian relying on auditory clues may be unaware of an approaching vehicle, says Ralf Kunkel, Head of Audi Acoustics." Nissan's been on this for years (as has Honda); one day, you may only get to choose which noise your car makes, rather than whether it does.
Re:How cool. (Score:5, Informative)
More stupid laws [stupidlaws.com] brought to you by the buggy whip manufacturer's cartel.
Really, this is just stupid shit all over again.
Five blind peds are killed by automobiles a year (Score:5, Informative)
NHTSA FARS data, 2002-2006: 27 legally blind pedestrians were killed by automobiles. 27/5 == 5.4 per year. Blind people being run over by automobiles simply isn't a rampant problem. Blind people often rely on audio cues to cross the street, but not the sound of engines. Instead, the chirp or verbal commands from crosswalk signal heads is the audio cue for blind pedestrians, combined with the trust that motorists will look for peds when turning right at intersections.
It's noise pollution, and it's oh so unnecessary.
Two Different Issues (Score:5, Informative)
A speaker making 'vroom vroom' noises outside the car does nothing for the driver - most modern Audi-class cars are so quiet inside you can barely hear an internal combustion engine. Some cars (even loud high-performance ones) already artifically add engine noise to the stereo system [cnet.com] so the driver can gauge their speed.
Re:any sound in the world.... (Score:2, Informative)
If you can't be bothered to look both ways before crossing the street, it's you who are negligent. The only exception is the blind, and we have audible crosswalks now, so this technology is pointless.
Deja vu all over again (Score:5, Informative)
The nonsense about electric cars is no different. It's just attempts by the lobbying department of interested automobile makers (the ones who aren't adapting to the 21st century) using bribed republicans and regulatory capture to try to create artificial barriers to adoption against their competition.
A very long time ago steam was the proven technology, electric cars were considered quiet and civilized, and gas engine cars were the noisy, dangerous, smelly upstarts. The gas engine car manufacturers engaged in a major FUD campaign against electric cars. They were dangerous! They were so quiet you couldn't hear them coming...
We have an active electric vehicle club [veva.bc.ca] here in Vancouver. The loudest noise their best conversions make is the whirr of the tires, sometimes with a slight groan from their power controllers. They have a 1912 Detroit [veva.bc.ca] electric car, and it's almost completely silent.
Our bus system has one of the larger fleets of electric trolley buses in the western world. They too are very quiet, but people get used to looking for them before crossing the street.
...laura
Re:Deja vu all over again (Score:5, Informative)
We have a tram system in Nice and one of the key selling features is how quiet it is. They run straight through all the major squares and streets with no barriers, yet people manage to avoid them without any problem. However just in case they have a horn which when they press a button it goes "beep".
When I get an electric car one of the things I will enjoy reducing is the noise pollution as much as any other kind. I don't see the problem with Audi making engine sounds, it's just nobody is going to buy an Audi,
Phillip.
Re:Deja vu all over again (Score:4, Informative)
The loudest noise their best conversions make is the whirr of the tires
At low speeds, EVs indeed only have a whirr from their tires. High speeds are another matter: in even gas-engine cars these days, the tires are the major noise-producing component. I remember a while back, Ferrari even had trouble with regulations in Europe because some car of theirs exceeded the drive-by noise limit, not because of its V12 engine, but because of its tires. Gas engines these days are rather quiet, but there's only so much you can do about tire noise, and higher-performing tires generally make more noise (while also increasing safety: the longest-wearing, lowest rolling-resistance tires are also generally the ones with the worst grip, and unless you never turn, lack of grip is a very bad thing, and it's even worse in wet conditions).