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
I’d finally have a use for all those ringtones I bought in the 2000s
8-bit linkin park here I come!
I wish we could bring back custom ring tones. Some people use the same sound for calls that I use for wake-up alarms. It’s jarring when I hear it, especially since my phone likes to fuck around on its own in my pocket sometimes (even though I use a biometric lock, it still finds a way.)
Do you have one of those old people limited phones or something? Every phone supports custom ringtones lol.
I have an iPhone, about 5 years old.
You can load your own ringtones, but you have to use a Mac or Windows computer with iTunes. I did this years ago to help my old rocker mum to have Born To Be Wild as her ringtone on her iPhone (13?).
You can do this with any android phone and probably any iphone. My text notification is the “!” Alert noise from Metal Gear Solid.
What do you mean “bring back”? At least with Android, any audio file you can transfer to your device can be used as a ringtone.
Motorola put out pc software that allowed you to transfer any mp3 file you had to your phone and use it as a ringtone. AFAIK it only worked with their devices, but it felt awesome doing that and then checking how much money I didn’t just spend.
I used to have the circus music (Entry Of The Gladiators) as my ringtone in my Razr.
This, i can’t believe the auto industry dropped the ball so hard. It was right there. Mewmewmewmewmew
Can you imagine the sound of traffic if you lived next to a main road 🤣
It would be about the same. Above 25mph or so, the road noise is louder than combustion engines (unless you intentionally make the engine louder)
Classic!
I meant in everyone was able to change their engine sound after reading the comments
I think they knew what you meant. They’re saying that once a car is going fast enough you won’t be able to hear the chosen sound anyway, just the wheels on the road and the air being pushed by the car.
Mmmm i disagree then
I live next to a large road in a city and can verify that cars are loud as fuck even without external speakers making customized car ringtones.
At least for my EV and in my state, it’s only required to simulate a noise up until a certain speed - 30mph, I think. I guess after that they assume you’re in a non pedestrian area or the car is making enough noise that it wouldn’t matter anyway.
It’s typically 19 mph (30 km/h)
I’ve always wanted the Screaming sun
Weird that no car manufacturer implemented some overpriced “car sound store” where you can change the obnoxious default UFO sound with another sound from a list for only $29.99 each
This is quite close: https://faq.bmwusa.com/s/article/BMW-ConnectedDrive-Upgrades-BMW-IconicSounds-Sport-Availability-UzXZE?language=en_US
You can buy a sound package addon in the BMW “Connected Shop”.
You already can on some. Hella videos of people doing it in Teslas, but my BF’s hybrid can also change the electric engine sound (or just leave it silent).
one of the neighbours tesla would make horse drawn cart noise. not sure if they still can do that. i dont live there anymore…
In the EU you can’t have a silent car.
