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Jon Excell
Jon Excell
Editor
The Engineer
Time for electric cars to find their voice
It’s not often that Culture Club, the Clash and the Beach Boys are mentioned in The Engineer, but in our latest interview we take an intriguing look at how the producer of these seminal acts - Steve Levine - is helping the auto industry address an increasingly pressing concern: making electric vehicles (EVs) noisier.
On the face of it, the relative silence of an EV is quite an endearing quality. Most people consider traffic noise a nuisance and anything that can be done to reduce it should probably be welcomed.
But there’s a flipside. As pedestrians and road users, we’re attuned to the sound of traffic. Almost subconsciously, we use the rising growl of an oncoming vehicle’s accelerating engine to gauge its distance and speed and to make a split-second decision about whether it’s safe to cross the road or not. Remove this important auditory cue and suddenly crossing the road becomes that little bit more hazardous.
And with EVs rapidly gaining in popularity, it’s an issue that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. After all, a spate of serious accidents involving near-silent electric cars and unwary pedestrians would seriously dent the growing, but still tentative, public acceptance of these vehicles.
Fortunately, industry and government are awake to the challenge and with legislation specifying minimum noise limits expected to come in soon, a number of companies are looking into possible solutions that will undoubtedly make greater numbers of EVs a safer proposition. As we report, Levine is working with Lotus Engineering and audio specialist Harmon on the development of HALOSonic, an active noise technology that promises to give both drivers of EVs and pedestrians those all-important audible cues.
We use the rising growl of an oncoming vehicle to make a split-second decision about whether it’s safe to cross the road
Of course, it’s not just about safety. Technology that endows the tiniest car with the growl of a V8 engine - or, as The Engineer once witnessed, the sound of 600 stampeding horses - is likely to become incredibly popular with the lucrative boy-racer market.
The importance of noise is also touched upon in our Big Story, which looks at the development of the snappily named M838T, the engine for McLaren Automotive’s new supercar - the equally snappily named MP4-12C.
The engineers involved in the project were tasked with developing an engine that delivers some impressive headline figures. But, as we report, beyond the tangible performance targets, they were equally mindful of a more subjective quality: the noise of the engine, a critical element of the visceral experience of driving a very fast, very expensive sports car.
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Readers' comments (36)
JP | 20 Sep 2011 4:03 pm
"the sound of 600 galloping horses"? I think the sound of two halves of a coconut might be more amusing...
Personaly I think this is unnnecesary. Bicycles are also silent and after living in the Netherlands I VERY quickly learnt to look instead of listen. People wont take long to adapt and cities will be better off with the silence.
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Peter Twissell | 21 Sep 2011 12:44 pm
The issue of pedestrians perception of road vehicle noise arose some years ago, when motorcycle noise limits were lowered and pedestrians who were used to hearing a bike that they couldn't necessarily see were being caught out by quiet bikes, especially in busy town centres.
The ironic possibility of a compulsory, continuous sounding audible warning device was raised.
Silent bicycles will teach a pedestrian to look out quite quickly. A collison with a silent car might be a pedestrians' last lesson.
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Anonymous | 21 Sep 2011 1:13 pm
Maybe we could fit the vehicles with a driver operated audible warning device.
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ts | 21 Sep 2011 1:14 pm
As a cyclist and cycling commuter I definitely use sound as well as sight to keep me safe and help when turning right etc, as I am not endowed with a gecko's range of head movement. If you asked my wife though she'd accept the extra risk to me to live next to a quieter road.
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Leo Maathuis | 21 Sep 2011 1:19 pm
This lack of noise from electric drive is a clear invitation for car drivers to a more defensive behavior.
This "problem" is not new at all. Bike drivers are known with it and know to cope with it for over a century.
So let electric cars be noisless or give them a subtle sound of a blackbird
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James | 21 Sep 2011 1:27 pm
EV cars are only really silent at low speeds. Drive train and tyres generate noise. This looks like a case of creation of un-needed technology on the part of car companies etc with no new ideas and no capability of keeping up with EV technology.
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Phil Ackerley | 21 Sep 2011 1:30 pm
Warrick university has already done quite a bit of research into this... With the Ipod generation id like to think it would be possible to download your own engine noises, yank V8 one day next day F1 engine noise...
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Anonymous | 21 Sep 2011 1:36 pm
It has been reported that a survey carried out in Australia resulted in the most popular sound for EV's should be the "theme to Benny Hill"
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Peter Bessey FCSD | 21 Sep 2011 1:51 pm
The sound plot of these vehicles should be considered carefully before adding unneccessary additional emissions, much as in dealing with aircraft noise pollution.
I happen to live close to the A205 South Circular Road in SW London. Apart from the occasional rogue 'boy racer' noise merchant and the more frequent emergency sirens, the majority of sound from vehicles passing, comes from tyre noise, particularly at night.
At this time, their sound can be very intrusive, especially as the majority of drivers then seem to feel that they can and therefore will, travel at high speeds on the relatively empty and unsupervised road.
Accompanied by the effects of wind pressure created by their passage in such narrow confines, noise from these vehicles is very apparent, particularly from the side.
So, if any additional sounds are needed on electric vehicles, for pedestrian safety reasons, then they should be concentrated forward of the vehicle only, not all-round.
However, to the majority of residents and businesses close to major roads, the notion of silent travel might be a pleasant relief, if not complete joy.
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Anonymous | 21 Sep 2011 1:56 pm
Many modern cars with internal combustion engines are impressively quiet these days in any case. But the sound that a pedestrian or cyclist hears is made up of sounds from a variety of sources, not just the engine, including tyre noise and wind noise. EVs will still produce as much of that as a conventional car, so it may be that we can simply become used to the different sound signature of an approaching EV.
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