Jetsons flying car
Star Trek/Star Wars swooshing
Child going “Vroom, Vroom!”
Hooves on a cobblestone road
Sports car shifting gears
Rickety jalopy shifting gears and backfiring
Weird engine noises like in “Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang” or “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”
Any other suggestions?
Who wants to set it up in the “Polls Only” thread?
I kinda like the sound of a high-end motorcycle for this…“whaaaaa-whaaaaaaaaa-whaaaaaaaaaa…”
We have a plug-in hybrid, and when it’s going under 30 mph, it makes an unearthly sound. I can always tell when someone’s coming home in it, because it sounds like a UFO just landed in the driveway.
I think it’s way more fun than a fake engine sound. Oddly enough, on the rare occasion that the gas engine starts up, my reaction is almost always alarm at the weird noise the car is making.
Geez, that sound is not only unearthly, it’s creepy and disconcerting.
What would it be like if there are ,say,30 or 40 cars like that all together in one place?
(Maybe a school when the parents are all picking up their kids)
It is not just electric or hybrid vehicles that make fake engine noise. My wife’s new Ford F-150 truck with the EcoBoost V-6 engine sounds much different inside than outside. The fake noise comes out of the speakers inside the truck. And Mustangs, and any other Ford with an EcoBoost 6 cylinder engine.
Beat me to it. Really, I want anything besides the sound of a combustion engine. Have fun with it, but don’t lie to me.
And dammit, that’s what they should do. My wife’s Outback has a CVT that always pretends it has gears. QUIT LYING TO ME, CAR! You’d be so much better if you’d stop lying to me.
Oooh, I like it!
And I like that, too. They both need some LFO modulation to make them really sweet, though.
If we’re going that route, I want this sound (and yes, I’m old enough to remember when the ad first came out).
Creating this was part of the plot of the Ron Howard film The Dilemma with Vince Vaughn. Not a great film but it had a few moments
Formula 1 car (V-10 era)
TIE fighter (I’m not sure which “Star Wars swooshing” sound you were thinking of, but this should be it)
The crackling afterburner sound from a F/A-18 Super Hornet, played through the biggest speakers that can be installed
Fran Drescher’s voice
Gilbert Gottfried’s voice
Fran and Gil singing a duet
US Marine Corps cadence (the songs they sing when they’re out for a jog)
This is sort of funny in ways, like some people who like to claim that manual gives a better driving experience and one feels more connected were just slapped in the face by this more phony driving experience to make one feel better. This option should also come with a teddy bear and some milk and cookies.
Perhaps one thing people like about the sound of the engine is that they know it and it’s comforting when it sounds right, and they can hear if something is off.
For some cars the sound of a lawnmower would be appropriate.
If they add sound (which is fine for those who want it) I hope it can be turned off. I love the quiet of an EV.
Re:CVT’s, Im an ex-mechanic (not currently a gearhead), but I constantly anticipate, and feel every single shift of my car (7 gears) and every other car Ive ever driven or been in.
When I was a teen, my pal and I wired an outdoor speaker under the hood of his car and used his CB handset to make burnout, and engine noises, and brake screeching sounds. Startled a few pedestrians crossing thr street in front of us.
I heard a Tesla backing up the other day for the first time.
They added a science-fictiony sound to alert you that it was backing up. Better than the beep-beep-beep of a backing-up truck. But it made me look around for UFOs abducting passers-by.
Part of the issue with sound effects for EV is a concern with safety of sight-impaired pedestrians.
As kanicbird mentions, a fake stickshift is kind of a cruel mockery. People used to dig manual trannys and rack-and-pinion steering for the experience of being in touch with the engine and the road.
My latest cvt ICE car has the fake-shift-point thing and I go like, what’s the point? Plus I suspect it adds an unnecessary complication and one more thing to break.
…and that’s why they’ve never set foot at that shop again 
For me it’s just a matter of expectations. Like if you whistle up the scale and stop on the seventh note (the leading tone) without returning to the tonic. I get the same sort of anxiety (not really capital-A Anxiety, but tension) with automatics that don’t quite shift when I want them to and get higher in the revs than I’m used to. I’m sure it’s something I’d get used to after a week, just like how single-pedal driving seems so weird to me vs. having a separate throttle and brake.
I think the idea is goofy and unnecessary, but not unexpected. After all, it’s not about reality --consumers use their vehicles to make statements, to themselves as well as the outside world.
According to Strategic Vision’s survey data, 98% of all SUV and crossover buyers drive off-road over rocks or in mud at most once per year, if ever, and 91% drive on dirt or gravel but one time a year or not at all.
Consumers who buy these vehicles love the ‘what if’ idea," he told ABC News. "That alone will get them to buy these vehicles. Consumers want flexibility and confidence. But few will make that leap from mall parking lot to off-roading adventuring.
Read the ABC news “what if” idea with the mind of the stick shift topic.
According to data collected by GMC, 19 percent of light-truck and crossover customers say they use their vehicle to go off-road,
So while this is off-road information, the idea holds: consumers want fantasy in their vehicles, and a phony stick shift in an EV should be no surprise.
BMW has done this for about 10 years. I recall an article on which fuse to pull to make your car quieter. It also disabled something else that you had to work around.