Electric vehicles 'too quiet'

[trigg_27]

Apparently, all new electric cars manufactured after 2019 will be required to generate white noise to warn pedestrians of their presence. Presumably too many people cross the road glued to their phone screens and rely on the sound of an engine to warn them that there's a car there.

I can understand the safety aspects of making an electric car audible, but is there any reason it needs to be white noise? Just think of the marketing opportunities for customisable sound packs which people could install on their car. You could have anything from a dirty great V8 to a child making 'vroom vroom' noises

 

[Jokester]

White noise has the benefit of it’s direction being easily identifiable - but once all cars are doing it...

 

[james.miller]

It's all about the Jetsons's car, baby

 

[Squark]

People should just open their eyes and look around, be more aware of their surroundings.

 

[BDEE]

Some people are blind and rely on being able to hear to keep safe.......

 

[Woden]

People should just open their eyes and look around, be more aware of their surroundings.

Unless your Jesus blind people can’t do this.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

People should just open their eyes and look around, be more aware of their surroundings.

Nah, that ship sailed once the Walkman was invented.

 

[Randomface74]

EVs are not silent. Tyres still make noise, blind people, and everyone else, can still hear them.
This is beurocratic bs lobbied by businesses who'd rather keep selling fossil fuels.

 

[BDEE]

EVs are not silent. Tyres still make noise, blind people, and everyone else, can still hear them.
This is beurocratic bs lobbied by businesses who'd rather keep selling fossil fuels.

What nonsense. Have you ever been on the pavement with an EV driving past you? Certainly been many times when I haven't heard it before I have seen it.

When you are done roasting your Sunday chicken you may want to recycle the foil into a hat.

 

[Squark]

Unless your Jesus blind people can’t do this.

Yeah I didn't consider that side straight away, my bad.

 

[Woden]

EVs are not silent. Tyres still make noise, blind people, and everyone else, can still hear them.
This is beurocratic bs lobbied by businesses who'd rather keep selling fossil fuels.

Yes, this. Definitely.

The oil barons new trick to save the energy monopoly is forcing electric cars to make a noise.

 

[Em3bbs]

What nonsense. Have you ever been on the pavement with an EV driving past you? Certainly been many times when I haven't heard it before I have seen it.

This is why as a sighted person I look before crossing (and was taught to do so by the Green Cross Code man as a kid in the 70s/80s). Blind people generally have more acute hearing than sighted people so would be listening out for the tyre noise before crossing a road and would normally only cross at a pelican or crossing anyway rather than just anywhere random on a road.

I'm sure there is a better technology that could be created than making a car externally noisier anyway.

 

[Conscript]

EVs are not silent. Tyres still make noise, blind people, and everyone else, can still hear them.
This is beurocratic bs lobbied by businesses who'd rather keep selling fossil fuels.

At slow speeds, which is what most cars are doing around town, tyres barely make any noise at all. I've certainly seen a few EVs go past me in town and they are pretty much silent.

Granted, at motorway speeds, tyre noise is definitely more prevalent, even more so than any engine noise - but there's not many pedestrians crossing motorways.

 

[blueboy2001]

This is silly.

I’ve only had one instance where a pedestrian has walked out in front of me when I’ve been running on electric in a car park and he soon moved when I blasted the horn at him. You do have to be more aware driving an EV at low speeds in town and around car parks, above about 20MPH tyre noise > engine noise on a modern ICE off the throttle anyway.

I collided with a pedestrian who walked straight out in front of me on my push bike when riding down a steep hill at about 25mph, fortunately a glancing blow from my elbow prevented me being thrown off the bike. It would be much better if people just looked.

 

[sgavan]

Don't see the point really in adding noise, all electric cars on the road would reduce so much noise pollution on major roads, but if they have to I want this

 

[FlakGunna]

What nonsense. Have you ever been on the pavement with an EV driving past you? Certainly been many times when I haven't heard it before I have seen it.

When you are done roasting your Sunday chicken you may want to recycle the foil into a hat.

Exactly, Toyota Prius Taxis are silent when pulling away up until at least 20mph, I've crossed the road many times not hearing them until they have picked up speed.

 

[Diddums]

Many years ago I found the perfect sound for this application. I can't find the track now, but I did apply it to a mate's COD montage for him. This is what I want my leccy car to sound like:

 

[Bear]

Just this weekend I’ve nearly run over 3 runners wearing headphones who seem to not bother looking before running out into the road and then jump out of their skin when I yell “lookout !” So IMO it is definitely worth doing adding white noise to EVs

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

To all the people who seem to think that all you need to do is look before crossing. Listening is an important part of being aware of your surroundings regardless of whether you're blind or not. There's a good reason why the advert said "stop look listen live".

 

[FlakGunna]

Just this weekend I’ve nearly run over 3 runners wearing headphones who seem to not bother looking before running out into the road and then jump out of their skin when I yell “lookout !” So IMO it is definitely worth doing adding white noise to EVs

I can imagine their faces.