Zoomi Life

Everybody loves the idea of electric cars. Renewable, rechargeable, no emissions, silent… but is silent safe? After all, as pedestrians, we rely on our sense of hearing as much as our sight to detect oncoming traffic when we’re out and about.

Many people have postulated that as electric vehicles become more mainstream, it is possible that the silent nature of the vehicles might cause increased traffic accidents because no one can hear them coming. In fact, the National Federation for the Blind is strongly backing a proposal to add some kind of warning noise to hybrid and electric vehicles for just this reason.

Well, a group of Stanford students think they might have an answer - fake engine noise pumped out by directional speakers, in order to alert other drivers and pedestrians to the oncoming vehicle. From the press release:

“The sound system Meyer and his team developed for super-quiet cars, including the Toyota Prius, uses miniature, all-weather audio speakers installed in the car’s wheel wells that are activated when the vehicle shifts into silent mode. The system cuts off when the car’s gasoline engine is running or when the vehicle’s speed reaches about 25 mph when tire and wind noise typically make it detectable.”

Personally, we would love to see the car engine sounds be modular, so that people can choose whether to sound like a Porsche, or Mustang… or even a Star Wars Pod racer or TIE Fighter. We’ve got programmable ring tones, why not programmable ‘car tones’?

You can see a video of the student’s work below, and you can hear the sound here. For the Stanford press release, click here.

This Post Via Stanford University and New Scientist