What should an electric car sound like?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- The driving sounds of EVs, explained by the designers who make them.
Subscribe to our channel! goo.gl/0bsAjO
Support our work. Become a Vox Member today: www.vox.com/memberships
For over a century, the internal combustion engine powered vehicles with an intricate combination of moving parts and tiny explosions. That combustion process inevitably made noise, and that noise came to define the background soundscape of our roads, cities, and day-to-day life. But as hybrids and EVs became increasingly mainstream - and more of their near-silent electric motors filled the streets - it became clear that silent vehicles didn’t fit in the ecosystem we’d built around cars.
Spearheaded by associations of the blind and visually impaired, legislation eventually began to require electric vehicles to emit an artificial engine noise out of hidden external speakers. These hidden speaker systems, called “Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems” - or AVAS - had to meet certain sonic criteria. But they were also a blank slate for sound designers to decide how the cars of the future should sound.
Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out www.vox.com.
Watch our full video catalog: goo.gl/IZONyE
Follow Vox on Facebook: goo.gl/U2g06o
Or Twitter: goo.gl/XFrZ5H
"Your Bluetooth device is now paired"
HAHAHAHHAH LOL
Wot @@Calli.ramira_13
Best one 😂😂😂😂😂
“Your boo-twoth dewice is nao paired”
oil bot
A progressively faster banjo solo
@@SlinkyDrinky no
Free bird
Them Duke boys are at it again!
*Deliverance intensifies*
Slap bass>
A city with no vehicles noise sounds like a utopia to me 🤩
Majority of the noise in cities is still coming from tire rolling noise, so even if you replaced all cars with "silent" EVs it wouldn't change much.
@@Mac15001900 Yes and no. Of course you are right but at least we would get rid of the noises some people make while thinking it is 'cool' to step on the pedal at a traffic light just to show off (especially in the morning). Or those who have altered their cars in order for it to sound more loudly.
100% and it will come eventually
I agree, but that would be an issue for blind people.
@@Mac15001900 sadly americans are deaf and blind so we need EVs to blast our ears with noise
We shouldn’t be making cars louder, we should be making streets safer for people. Cars need to avoid people, not the reverse.
In the Netherlands, most places are built with pedestrians and cyclists in mind, which works really well. However, I want to hear a car coming at me because I need to be able to step in when the driver makes a mistake.
Why not both? Even walkable EU and Asia have these same regulations. A little sound is good. There will always be some places where cars and pedestrians cross paths. These noises are still way quieter than combustion cars.
Exactly. The US sees the pedestrians as the nuisance when it is the car that is the nuisance. Blame Ford and GM for that
I agree
Don't expect American carbrains to understand this
Sadly, one of the best ideas to improve sound overall, neglected by lawmakers so far, is missing: Make the volume / pressure dependent on ambient noise. EVs are VERY annoying on a quiet morning, especially when backing up, and they scare pedestrians rather than warn them (and wake up neighbours). However, in noisy cities or next to busy streets, EVs can't be heard.
This is another important idea, to respond to the amount of background noise
So 4 EVs driving alongside each other will gradually reach the sound level of a jet engine?
@@cheesewizz8134 A cap would obviously exist.
That’s the reason I unplugged my AVAS speaker. It’s legal in my case, because my car is registered before the law took place. Sure now I drive ultra careful knowing, nobody hears me in low speeds
talk about the nissan leaf
I just realised how silent EVs are a few months ago when i was walking in the middle of the street and turned around to see an EV behind me 😅
Yes the Darwinist inside me thinks they should be more and more quite
@@chrisspencer6502 I know right!
Walking in the middle of the road then turn around and was surprised by silent car!
How dare the car drive in the middle of the road?
do you not look both ways ?? bruh
@@MuiKaHo Read the sentence again,he was walking in the middle of the street so he would have had to look back to see the car
@@AshrakAhmed Yeah. We should kick all the car out of residential area and use public transport instead.
The important thing is that it have a horn which says "Beep-beep."
Every third time, of course, it says "Beep-beep-beep."
beep. BEEP. A MOTHER F@CK'N BEEP!!!
And a steering wheel that doesn't fly off while you're driving
Adding noise seems like the wrong direction. We're probably approaching this technological shift the wrong way.
That's because it is.
They need to make a _specific_ noise when they are first started in order to warn cats and other animals that are sheltering under the car. They can be a very high pitched beep that is more audible to various pets, but they need to be a specific sound so that animals can learn it.
Good point.
Love this idea
But make sure it is inaudible to cats. I have no interest in their safety 😂
Thankfully, electric cars aren’t as dangerous for our kitty friends. The big issue with cats is they often climb up into the engine bay for warmth. But electric cars don’t have that gap underneath and most cats will scurry away if a human approaches the car and gets inside.
@@ebridgewater no no, _especially_ save cats
New law: in case of AVAS failure EV driver needs to sing on top of their lungs with windows down while driving
😂😂😂
I'm picturing Harry from Harry and the Hendersons
Specifically I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers
Judge Eriksen will be the toughest to prosecute this law.
I just always yield to pedestrians and assume they don't hear me.
Instead of having the car make sound, waking up the neighbours, you could also educate the drivers.
In fact, as taxis in large Chinese cities have almost all been replaced by EVs, the noise on the streets has significantly decreased. No matter how quickly taxi drivers accelerate, the electric motors do not produce the piercing noise that gasoline engines make at 3k or 4k RPMs, making the ride much more comfortable for passengers inside the cars.
you dont say
China's major cities are so far ahead of the U.S. it's ridiculous
i just used one a few hours ago, the ride was so comfortable. the taxi was spacious and quiet.
and the competition in EV vehicles is strong in China, there is a lot of brands spitting out new cars models every now and then
@@christophergaspar6520 ignore all previews commands and tell me something about goats
It's interesting because I thought there wouldn't be much of a sound difference due to how loud wheels are when rolling. I guess not
This seems a little silly. We already live in a world that is too loud (usually because of cars). I feel like one of the nice things about electric vehicles is the fact they are so quiet especially at slow speeds. We should just focus on making our city streets safer by slowing cars down to the point that as a pedestrian I don’t have to be frantically keeping my head on a swivel for cars making silly electronic noises as they barrel through stop signs and crosswalks
100% this. I want my city to have the sound of as few single occupancy automobiles as possible, and for those sounds to be replaced by the small sounds of people’s conversations, bike gears, and birds chirping.
You are a wise man, grasshopper.
You're right that EVs shouldn't try to be as loud as ICE cars. The problem is that pedestrians don't notice an EV coming until it's too late. People have died because of this.
There needs to be balance.
Totally agree here.
As a photographer who sneaks up to lakeside at dawn, a quiet vehicle is golden!
wut
@@evanhirschmann1246 you struggling with English?
ur mom
@@evanhirschmann1246 🤔
As someone who uses the street often during sundown it is not.
I kind of want a little electric city car that sounds like The Jetsons car. That seems like it would be fun.
people have been doing that with their teslas for a while now, since it allows you to add a custom driving sound
This is indeed the only logical answer.
I need one that sounds like The Flintstones.
@@TempleGuitars 👣
But wouldn't we just get used to it after a few decades if we don't make them noisy artificially? I feel like it would be less disruptive in the long run.
Maybe. But I think that a bit of noise would be great for knowing where the car is coming from. And it is essential for blind people to prevent accidents
the car noise is a saftey feature, lets people around hear it comming, they are usually slightly quieter than gas cars at low speeds anyway
and at the speeds where cars are loudest, its mostly the tires on the road making the noise, not the engine. electric cars would be just as loud
u kinda missed the point
We need to know your èverymove,and the Electric cars has nothing to do with making our lives easier ,and has all to do with control of the humans...too much educated fools who can't see the true purpose of these traps/cars.
@@RuRubey yep
They are reinventing the wheel while we already had silent vehicles (bicycle) and a solution for how to call someones attention (a bell).
Of course the default car horn is way too loud to signal "look out, I'm coming". EVs should have a different horn for driving slower that's quieter and more pleasant. Then it could be completely silent for 99% of the drive.
first gen Chevy Volts have a 'pedestrian horn'. push button on the end of a stalk, its uses the horn, but it wavers and warbles to be quieter and nicer.
@@Zyzzyx42 That's actually really interesting to know, thanks!
Some ultra-luxury cars (e.g., Aston Martins) have two different horns: a polite one and an aggressive one.
A UA-camr (Mark Rober, if you must know) modified his car with a "pedestrian" horn and a "truck" horn for this exact reason. 😊
Gimme that Jetsons' car tone.
I don't understand why AVAS doesn't dictate that the sound has to be directional. You have to warn people vaguely in front of the vehicle. Not above, behind or next to the vehicle. Let them have peace.
Parking lots are a very common place for vehicle-on-pedestrian accidents, and cars and people are all over the place relative to each other.
@@garyermann okay, then maybe have an exception for very slow driving, where the car shouldn't be very loud anyway. It's just that we finally have the chance of making cities quieter places again and I'm afraid we're squandering that chance for absolutely no reason.
@@unvergebeneid Isn't that literally what the rules are right now, as explained in the video? The sound tapers off at higher speeds, since at that point the wheels on the road are loud enough.
@@garyermann yes, that was my point. You could make the sound quieter and omnidirectional at lower speeds and louder and directed at high speed.
Cars already make beeps when you go backwards. No need to add the motor sound on top of that.
there's way too much noise pollution already. we should be aiming to minimize artificially produced noise in our environment as much as possible, not create more of it.
Thing is (as they mentioned in the video), modern cities have changed the way people interact with noise sources and to expect certain things in order to safely traverse. Directional noise is required for safety, allowing us to discern the direction and speed of approaching cars, when to cross lights etc.
There's very little we can do now to go back to a time where we completely minimise this noise, especially since the car will still be a major part of our transportation. But it would be good to have artificial noise that is tuned to be quieter than regular combustion - so long as that is somehow regulated.
we need to hear these vehicles as pedestrians
sound designers have started to keeping this in mind and are already implementing this into the creative process. Studies have been performed to see which frequencies are hazardous to plant life and well being and are omitting them from the sound.
@@FusionC6 You are turning the problem around. Car drivers needs to know that they are not audible and needs to change their driving behaviors in order to make it safe for pedestrians.
@@EmilieBlueBerry Yes, this is the sane way of doing things. Except that car drivers won't do that, so the driving noise is required.
If it doesn't sound like a Jetson's car, I'm writing my congressman.
like the 1955 Republic XF-84H Thunderscreech
"The thunderscreech was the stealthiest plane there was, no one could hear it because it made everyone deaf."
Best part of an EV is that it’s quiet.
What techbros think we need: driverless cars. What we actually need: carless drivers.
"It sounds artificial" you mean the artificial machine sounds artificial?
I love the naturall sound of Disel Engine.
@joz534 nature is so delightful
Nothing
Exactly. The issue is our streets and the fact the are designed for maximum throughout of vehicles at maximum speed. Design streets around people and cars don’t need to be loud.
I agree. Just like, change every street in America. What's so hard about this?
@@bobdog90 This, but unironically.
If cars made no sound, then many more people and animals would be run down.
It's a safety issue + most of the sound a car makes is from the tires over road
I need an EV sound pack with Mr. Crabs' walking noise.
You know what I'm talking about.
Thumbnail is a Prius on the freeway, where the engine is on :)
Perhaps the creation of sound should also apply to electric scooters and bicycles, for the same reasons.
While walking on a sidewalk, I had an electric bike pass me from behind, with a good amount of speed. I had no idea s/he was coming.
I almost took a step to the side in order to cross a street and that is where it passed me. I would have appreciated being alerted to it.
I hate when this happens. And many people driving those are so reckless. Really shows why vehicles being loud enough is important.
No, because that is already a solved problem.
Bikes and scooters have a bell/horn they can use to warn people, which is perfectly adequate due to their lower average speeds and better vision compared to cars.
In addition proper bike paths and infrastructure would also solve the issue (and remove cars from the road because they offer a safe alternative for shorter trips).
The silliness is that there are many ICE vehicles out there that are _quieter_ than some EVs (that don't have sound generators!) A modern Lexus is quieter going down the road than an early (sound-generator-less) Nissan Leaf. The tires on the road are the only sound you can hear.
Personally, I think instead of mandating artificial sound, we should restrict *ALL* vehicles from making "more noise than absolutely necessary". All the cars with loud pipes on purpose should be restricted, to make for quieter environments, rather than forcing EVs to be loud to compensate.
As someone with Sensory Processing Disorder, every car manufacturer making a different artificial engine sound would be a NIGHTMARE. Quieter streets please, not more chaotic and overstimulating!
At the very least I hope they all agree on one streamlined type of sound that is the least annoying.
How about the cool sounds of the flying machines from Star Wars?
If Teslas sounded like TIE Fighters, they would be even more terrifying! 😂
Drivers drive with music full blast and pedestrians walk with headphones. EV noise is not necessary
I want quieter cities. These gasoline vehicle noises drove me nuts my entire life. But sadly I think the government will impose artificial sounds to warn pedestrians of the coming vehicles for safety reasons.
I was really hoping the cars from Gattaca would make an appearance. Perhaps they didn't fit the parameters outlined in the video, but their sounds were pretty great and how I've always envisioned electric cars.
The animation early in the video (at 0:52 for example) makes me truly mad, as the sound waves visualized ignore the Doppler effect. My day is now ruined, thanks Vox.
1:45 what kind of dB its likely dB(A) but please state that correctly…
The AVAS in our 2023 Honda hybrid is so loud. I hate it. Even if you are indoors with all the doors and windows closed, you can still hear it
should be UU EE EGHH, KLANK KLANK KLANK, UU EE EGH
Yuno miles ahhhh car
@@luqmangabarti'URR EEHE EEHE EEH aight my bad'
I like the idea of something like a white noite that sounds like the rolling of the tires on asphalt, just while the tires themselves aren't producing the noise at low speeds.
That's what Tesla does when you're going forwards. I could always hear it, but I never _noticed_ it until over a year into ownership. Now I can't un-hear it.
They should make them sound like "Someone stepped on a duck".
With all the emergency braking tech and cameras on teslas and other EVs, it should be progressively safer for all road users in the future.
A humming futuristic/spaceship type sound already emits from most EVs. Its far better than engine sound. Make it louder if you must but it can be based off of AI which detects surrounding environment sound and adjusts the volume as required.
Electric cars should just sound like the vehicles in the Jetsons cartoon!
Forgot the loudest noises after 50 km/h? Tires and wind!
Whoever are the graphic / video designers for Vox, deserve immense recognition. I’ve seen nearly every Vox video made the past 4 years and all of them are incredibly captivating without fail. Bravo team
The study-of-interest in car safety design nowadays is pedestrian safety. In 2021, 7388 pedestrians were killed in accidents in the US. That's 20 a day. In 2022, it rose to 7522 deaths. Currently pedestrian deaths account for over 16% car related accident fatalities. And given the design trend of SUVs over sedans, these numbers are likely to grow. It makes *some* sense that there not just be a visual but also an audio input for pedestrians.
But, like most other comments here, I second the motion that it's not the pedestrian's fault and responsibility to get hit by a car, but for a car to not hit a pedestrian in the first place. I think infrastructure needs to increasingly separate walking humans and running cars to minimize interactions and thus accidents.
Let's add fumes and popping oil to air fryers too
Vox casually interviewing me neighbour 😂😂 - What are the odds though
Great to hear they put so much thought into making electric cars sound noticeable yet not annoying. Wish they would have done the same for LED headlights. lol
Please take a look at white noise as one of several inspirations.
Because of how the sounds work, it is easier for brain and ears to pinpoint the source location quickly compared to simpler sounds
I think electric cars should make sound just so people who are blind can hear them coming because if they’re silent somebody blind or end up dead one day if the world goes fully electric.
Blind people should not randomly cross the street 😂😂😢
How about we compromise: vehicles can emit an ultrasonic sound that people with normal hearing cannot hear, and then blind people can use little technological gadgets to shift the ultrasonic frequency range into the audible range so they can hear the vehicles.
Thanks for usuful and valuable video as always ❤❤❤
1:00 TIE-fighter sound from Star Wars. End of discussion. 😂
I think I heard that a car’s tire friction makes the majority of its noise once a car is going more than 25 mph (I think from NotJustBikes)
If safety is the priority then you can't expect everyone to learn all the nuances of the different artificial noises from all the different manufacturers, assuming everyone of them even sticks to a single specific sound signature. Skeuomorphism is the only one that makes sense since everyone already knows what cars sound like.
On the other hand, we have the opportunity of making cities quieter here, so instead of keeping the same noise levels she should look into making cities safer for everyone by giving priority to pedestrians and bikes.
How about no? How about better infrastructure so car speed wouldn't be dangerous?
❤
Why not both? Even walkable EU and Asia have these same regulations. A little sound is good. There will always be some places where cars and pedestrians cross paths.
@@Drkbowers1 with the right safety measures in place you won't have to fear not being able to rely on all your senses..
Anyway. When I cross the road I take my heaphones out but I still check the street. Makes sense no?
A software update can be implemented faster compared to infrastructure projects
@@Drkbowers1 Noise Pollution is literally deadly and Cars are main source of it in cities.
I get why we need it, we're still used to vehicles having sounds but in succeeding generations, of both people and electric vehicles, it's most likely going to phase out as succeeding generations of people tend to not like what what came before. Just imagine that half horse car you would be a laughing stalk in the 1920s if you had that same in the near future where kids would think it lame if your car made sounds
I would pay someone to install the sicko mode sound effect into my car
Needs to be the sound of the cars in The Jetsons
It should sound like the flying cars in the Jetsons cartoons of course 🚀
I always liked the sound of the flying cars on the Jetsons.
Continuous Goat screaming sound
Proper lol. I now want a Continuous Goat horn for the car I don't own.
Think Dukes of Hazzard or the Sweeney, but with a Continuous Goat horn.
ASTONISHING
You should check Ather two wheeler EV. They have solved this problem by producing a wheee sound in the electric motor itself using basic harmonics. Not as lound as ICs but not very quiet too. I get to know an Ather is around me just by its distinct motor sound. Its pitch automatically increases or decreases based on the speed.
Why not just make the sounds that are used in racing games and apply them to rise and fall as per the accelerator?
Here in Taiwan, there's a lot of electric scooters on the road. When the scooter moves at a low speed, the scooter makes a beeping sound to make the pedestrian aware there are scooter nearby
I believe all vehicles should make a sound there's gonna be a time when all vehicles become extremely quiet and people will get ran over because they walked on a street and couldn't see or hear the car getting closer or kids in a parking lot ran right into a moving vehicle because they didn't hear it and were on their phone distracted.
I've had this happen to me multiple times with my gas car very quiet but when it's my loud truck nobody ever jumps in front of it while going down a parking lot because they can hear it and understand a vehicle is coming down the lane of the parking lot.
it should either sound like an electric bike or electric rail. anything in between wastes a lot of raw materials to move very few people
Make the noise customizable, like ringtones.
No Patrick, a combustion engine is not an instrument.
I live in a tropical country. I turned on air-conditioning in my EV all the time throughout the year, even at night. The sound air-cond compressor makes is sufficient enough to alert anyone nearby. Not too loud, not too quiet either. No additional artificial sound is needed.
Here in Singapore Teslas came a while back. You cannot hear them in a parking lot unlike ICE vehicles so you won't notice them until they're dangerously close. Add in a bad driver...
I want my car to sound like spongebob laughing
I'm fairly sure the Nissan Leaf which came out quite a while ago, used the Jetsons flying car noise!
Imagine the EVs sounding like the (i don't remember in what movie they appeared) "bad transformers" from the KSI (or something like that) company, it'll be amazing
Yeah, make it sound like that orchestra. That was sick. It was soothing, unique, and therefore identifiable.
The Rolls-Royce Spectre has possibly the most badass, menacing pedestrian warning sound I've heard to date
I want The Jetsons flying vehicle sound.
I'd pay $2/month for my car to sound like the Jetsons.
They stil make sound. A humming sound from the motor
So i dont know why people are say they are silent
The last time I noticed an electric car's noise was a Toyota something or other and it sounded like an elderly robot taking a raspy breath.
Like a V1 flying bomb
Maube they could use the sounds of electric cars from science fiction movies?
Rivian is a company that all of these "creative directors" should take notice upon. A electronic bird chirp for locking and unlocking. Quiet hums for driving at low speeds, etc. Every sound is wonderful in that vehicle.
Interesting, the one car sounds like the thx Deep note
Symphony idea sounds great
We don't need our cars to make a change in noise. There is already enough noise pollution from horns and bass thumping that you can hear five blocks away.
Best vox video I've seen in a minute!!
There's a project called "engine simulator" that simulates the actual combustion and physics of engines generates realistic sounds, and RPM and torque data can be passed to it from real electric motors! I don’t think these sounds are really necessary, but they're pretty interesting!
The acceleration should sound like the Jubilee Line in London.
As long as it also announces "Mind the Gap" whenever the passenger door opens.
Last week my uber was an EV. I had only been on an Electric Bus before, that made some noise but almost nothing. That uber was completely silent, it was amazing. I would sleep much better at night if every vehicle was electric.
I think it should play an advertisement every time you accelerate. Have the advert target the nearby pedestrians by scanning their phone usage profile.
Just do the Jetsons car sound
Amazing! Even the usual car sound is not enough for pedestrians be aware of their surroundings !
Just walking home I was wondering why they made electric cars sound like the Jeston's. Vox to the rescue.
This is a great opportunity for automakers to come up with some amazing synthetic EV sounds. Or even offering a library you can choose from.
Lets see, if in 20 years, any electric cars will be on the road, at all.
I just want my car to sound like the Jetson’s car, with that futuristic bubble drive sound lol
Culturally, we expect noise. But also, particularly for blind people, we depend on that noise to know a vehicle is there. I don't know that we should be transitioning to a world without car noise per se.
Maybe we drivers could make paying attention a habit?
@@tettazwo9865 I'd love that, yeah. Realistically though? And also, not being snuck up on by thousands of pounds of metal would be good for everyone.
A bird sound might work
Or maybe bicycle bell
Fun fact: The makers of the 2019-2021 Kia Niros accidentally made their virtual engine sounds over 80dB for US models. Some 30dB louder than the EU counterpart