5 ms·

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

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.