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Once electric vehicles become more prevalent than gas-powered vehicles, imagine the affect on the city and its noise levels. A place like NYC where these trucks

by dpflan 9y ago

Once electric vehicles become more prevalent than gas-powered vehicles, imagine the affect on the city and its noise levels. A place like NYC where these trucks will be tested seems to be defined by the "hustle-and-bustle" and the noise/sound of vehicular movement is part of that. I wonder what the overall affect on noise of the city will be: you can hear more birds than you thought existed in the city? You no longer are begrudgingly awoken by the garbage truck in the early morning. What are the positive and negative results of reduced vehicle noise?

josefresco 9y ago
Some "road noise" is caused by tires making contact with the road surface. This might not apply in stop-and-go traffic, but certainly has an effect on highways which pass through many cities. Also, honking.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  To add on to that: Just cruising down the highway in an wouldn't be appreciably quieter if EVs weren't chock full of things to mitigate NVH because low NVH is a selling point that the manufacturers of EVs need to reinforce/live up to. The fan on most cars is louder than the engine at idle. An EV still needs a fan to draw air over an A/C condenser at idle.
  - dx034 9y ago
    Only where it's hot. I've driven several EVs in Europe and not noticed a fan noise at all. But you only use the A/C ~5-10% of the time here. Tyre noise is different, on motorways EVs are not much quieter (for cars, not for trucks). In cities the difference is huge.
  - hackeraccount 9y ago
    NVH = Noise, Vibration, Harshness. If I save one person a 10 second google search this will have been worth it.
- csours 9y ago
  "tyre/road noise dominates over power unit noise for all speeds and gears except when driving on the first gear" PDF: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:673693/FULLTEXT01.pdf http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:673693/FULLTEXT01... Note on reading the graphs - look for the black line labeled "coast by". This is the line with no engine (power unit) noise, which is control for the other colored lines with engine noise.
usrusr 9y ago
> I wonder what the overall affect on noise of the city will be: you can hear more birds than you thought existed in the city? More audio spectrum for AC units and the screeching of garbage truck loading mechanisms. I would not expect too much difference.
- gambiting 9y ago
  I actually noticed a staggering difference between American and European cities - American cities were so much quieter than what I am used to, because cars and trucks there are usually petrol(gas) powered - and don't have rumbly diesel engines. A garbage truck over here in UK is extremely loud in the morning because all you can hear is the rumbling of the huge diesel going POM POM POM POM POM like a tractor - in America I noticed that while there were some diesel vehicles, they were very rare, and the trucks were just quiet without their usual(for me) diesel rattle.
Brakenshire 9y ago
The City of London is exceptionally busy (not far off half a million people traveling to a square mile of land and back out again every day, and going in and out of offices throughout the day), but doesn't have that much vehicle noise in many parts. There's a congestion charging scheme for all private vehicles, almost all the roads have a 20 mph speed limit, many are access-only, or pedestrianized. The central junction at Bank is bus and bicycle only to reduce congestion. Most people come in by the Tube, or walking from mainline stations, or by bus. Obviously you have construction going on, fairly frequent jackhammers, and some busy streets. Electric vehicles will definitely make a big difference (particularly electric buses), but you can get a feel for that sort of world. It's pleasant, you can't say too much more than that. Better to limit the stress to occur only in the offices, not so much on the streets as well! The only downside I can think of is for cyclists, and to a lesser extent pedestrians, to be able to hear vehicles. Hopefully lower levels of noise in general will mean being able to hear the tire noise. Will be interesting to see whether we have to tackle that, and if so, how. I actually walked past a diesel vehicle yesterday which was announcing "this vehicle is turning left", hope that doesn't become too normal. But if we did have to generate sound for safety, maybe we could even improve safety from the current situation, by having sound standards which somehow had an intuitive way of indicating vehicle size, speed, or turning intent.

by dpflan 9y ago

josefresco 9y ago

Some "road noise" is caused by tires making contact with the road surface. This might not apply in stop-and-go traffic, but certainly has an effect on highways which pass through many cities. Also, honking.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
To add on to that: Just cruising down the highway in an wouldn't be appreciably quieter if EVs weren't chock full of things to mitigate NVH because low NVH is a selling point that the manufacturers of EVs need to reinforce/live up to. The fan on most cars is louder than the engine at idle. An EV still needs a fan to draw air over an A/C condenser at idle.
- dx034 9y ago
  Only where it's hot. I've driven several EVs in Europe and not noticed a fan noise at all. But you only use the A/C ~5-10% of the time here. Tyre noise is different, on motorways EVs are not much quieter (for cars, not for trucks). In cities the difference is huge.
- hackeraccount 9y ago
  NVH = Noise, Vibration, Harshness. If I save one person a 10 second google search this will have been worth it.
csours 9y ago
"tyre/road noise dominates over power unit noise for all speeds and gears except when driving on the first gear" PDF: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:673693/FULLTEXT01.pdf http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:673693/FULLTEXT01... Note on reading the graphs - look for the black line labeled "coast by". This is the line with no engine (power unit) noise, which is control for the other colored lines with engine noise.

usrusr 9y ago

> I wonder what the overall affect on noise of the city will be: you can hear more birds than you thought existed in the city? More audio spectrum for AC units and the screeching of garbage truck loading mechanisms. I would not expect too much difference.

gambiting 9y ago
I actually noticed a staggering difference between American and European cities - American cities were so much quieter than what I am used to, because cars and trucks there are usually petrol(gas) powered - and don't have rumbly diesel engines. A garbage truck over here in UK is extremely loud in the morning because all you can hear is the rumbling of the huge diesel going POM POM POM POM POM like a tractor - in America I noticed that while there were some diesel vehicles, they were very rare, and the trucks were just quiet without their usual(for me) diesel rattle.

Brakenshire 9y ago

The City of London is exceptionally busy (not far off half a million people traveling to a square mile of land and back out again every day, and going in and out of offices throughout the day), but doesn't have that much vehicle noise in many parts. There's a congestion charging scheme for all private vehicles, almost all the roads have a 20 mph speed limit, many are access-only, or pedestrianized. The central junction at Bank is bus and bicycle only to reduce congestion. Most people come in by the Tube, or walking from mainline stations, or by bus. Obviously you have construction going on, fairly frequent jackhammers, and some busy streets. Electric vehicles will definitely make a big difference (particularly electric buses), but you can get a feel for that sort of world. It's pleasant, you can't say too much more than that. Better to limit the stress to occur only in the offices, not so much on the streets as well! The only downside I can think of is for cyclists, and to a lesser extent pedestrians, to be able to hear vehicles. Hopefully lower levels of noise in general will mean being able to hear the tire noise. Will be interesting to see whether we have to tackle that, and if so, how. I actually walked past a diesel vehicle yesterday which was announcing "this vehicle is turning left", hope that doesn't become too normal. But if we did have to generate sound for safety, maybe we could even improve safety from the current situation, by having sound standards which somehow had an intuitive way of indicating vehicle size, speed, or turning intent.