These discussions – and even regulations – about EVs needing to make artificial noise really piss me off. They’re so regressive and counterproductive, for a number of reasons.
First of all, Teslas and the like are NOT silent. I’ve heard them on the street, and you can distinctly hear the sound of the tires against pavement. They’re not even silent moving around in parking lots – you can still hear the crunching of the tires.
Second, many refined ICE cars are not exactly making “Vroom! Vroom!” sounds. Many are remarkably quiet. I particularly remember when I was the proud owner of a brand new 1977 Chevrolet Caprice, and a friend who was riding with me remarked at a stoplight, “it’s hard to believe that there are eight cylinders exploding there under the hood” because indeed the only sound you could hear was the gentle hiss of air from the air conditioning. It was hardly much louder on the outside.
Third, there are many other sources of dangers that don’t make a sound, like aggressive cyclists. Are we now going to require all bicycles to have baseball cards pinned to the wheel spokes so they make “Vroom!” sounds, like we used to do as kids?
And if we’re going to cater to the visually impaired, what are we going to do about the hearing impaired? Maybe EVs should not only make loud noises, they should also be equipped with police-style strobe lights on the roof! Hell, just equip all cars with sirens and strobes!
A 2009 Scion xB? That’s the model after the idiots redesigned the car. Upped the horsepower, which reduced the gas mileage (I get low/mid 30s MPG), smoothed out the boxy lines (which made the thing look like a PT Cruiser on steroids), smoothed out the dashboard (which took away a lot of the nooks and crannies for putting stuff), and generally degraded the original to try to win more of what they thought the American market wanted. In other words, bollixed up a good thing.
My 2006 has some drawbacks, sure, but it’s still a bitchin’ good little buggy.
Color me completely confused on that sentence. I’m a diehard cyclist, but have no idea if I’d be considered aggressive or non-aggressive. I don’t think I make much noise on my road and commuter bikes, but my mtn bike makes quite a bit of noise on roads due to the tires. Maybe I’m aggressive on road style “quiet” tires and non-aggressive on my mtn bike?
I make a lot of noise on my bike… because I’m always singing. Blind people are swiveling my direction saying "WHO is doing that perfect ‘David Bowie singing Shake It Off’?"
And, inspired by this thread, I’m now adding this song to my repetoire:
Allow me to assuage your sensibilities, which I appear to have offended. I have no problem with bicycles or cyclists in general. I carefully watch out for them when I’m driving. If you parse my comment more precisely in its full context, you’ll see that it refers, in the subject of the first part, to “sources of dangers that don’t make a sound”, and in the object of the second part, to “aggressive cyclists”.
If I may expand on that, the big city where I used to live was infested by aggressive cyclists (perhaps in a minority, but they were there). They were aggressive both in the physical sense of entitlement to own the road and all rights of way while ignoring all traffic laws, in their inclination to physically attack drivers or their cars who didn’t accede to their entitlements, and also politically aggressive in trying to legally institutionalize the inviolable dominance of bicycles over cars. Many of these were cyclists running small-scale courier services, others were just entitled assholes. But most cylists are – as I’m sure you are – just normal people on a bicycle. I distinguish the former from the latter.
I’ve driven a Nissan LEAFfor 5 years. The only difference between and EV and an ICE is that the EV accelerates more smoothly. I"m sure there are no lack of drivers very experienced with EV’s
I remember back in about 2000, I was photographing one of the early Toyota Priuses in Budapest for a newspaper assignment. When it was in battery mode, I couldn’t tell it was there, so much so that I got gently brushed by one going maybe 5 mph. When I was standing in front of one, I couldn’t tell if it was on or off. It’s useful to me to know whether the car is “live” or not, even if its not moving. I imagine with vision-impaired people even moreso, as they construct a mental map of the world based on audio and tactile cues.
As soon as I put my EV into drive mode, there is a (slight) noise to alert pedestrians. Even before I start moving. If I put it into Reverse, there is a beeping. Even before I start moving.
In Park, there is no noise. Which I think is OK. It’s in park. It’s not going anywhere.
I expect most EV’s especially new ones will have this feature.
The law doesn’t require that EVs try to emulate a combustion engine with “vroom” sounds and all that. But some EVs do that anyway because consumers want it.
Regarding car sound, recently I was surprised to learn something on that topic from listening to a conservationist being interviewed on Hawai’i public radio. He was asked whether electric cars would increase road kill of endangered species because they are quieter and animals don’t get the same warning. The scientist said that most highway car noise does not come from the engine, but from the wheels, as tires create temporary vacuum seals over tiny pits in the road that pop when the seal is released. So electric cars are not a lot quieter than gas-powered cars, at least when driven at higher speeds.
Very true. The regulation requiring artificial noise on EVs is only when they are moving under 30 km/hr (19 mph). Above that, their tires create plenty of noise.
But below that, they are very silent. Our first EV (2015) had no extra sound, and it was whisper quiet under 5 mph, and barely audible under 15 mph.
Except for the aholes with packed mufflers. How will these little people survive without blowing noise and smoke all over for the attention. But I’m not bitter.