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I'm always mystified by people, especially people who live in cities, that want to require cars to emit noise pollution. Thankfully, the "mandatory noisemaker"

I'm always mystified by people, especially people who live in cities, that want to require cars to emit noise pollution. Thankfully, the "mandatory noisemaker" impulse seems to have died out at least for now. I know if my vehicle is ever required to have a noisemaker I'm going to have it be the Ghostbuster's Ecto-1 broken ambulance sound. To me the thing that is most noticeable about electric propulsion cars is the smoothness of the drive train. No revving, lurching to shift, then revving again. No coasting, then a lag when you step on the accelerator, then a lurch in to acceleration. Just pure smoothness. It is luxurious, quite apparent, and different.

jazzyjackson 7y ago
Having lived in manhattan I can attest that the cars are just about the last source of noise pollution I noticed when contrasted with larger vehicles and construction. I think a 1% increase in taxes would be totally justifiable for quality of life to replace all the garbage trucks with electric vehicles (or at least buy em some damn mufflers!) Maybe we can divert some R&D funds to engineering a quiet jackhammer. If I had stayed in the city any longer I would have become a politician running on the platform that we use all the subway trains as garbage / freight / delivery haulers, and put light rail up and down the avenues. cars banned below 110th st (you too deBlasio !)
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  Leaf blowers are astonishingly loud. There must be a way to make them quieter, but it seems that no manufacturers are doing that. Seems there might be an opportunity there, "buy the only leaf blower that doesn't make your neighbors want to murder you"!
  - Doxin 7y ago
    I can imagine quieter leaf blowers selling worse because they seem less powerful to potential buyers.
  - rbanffy 7y ago
    Has Dyson ever looked into that?
neuralRiot 7y ago
To each its own, smooth cars are the most boring thing for me, automatic/ gearless and smooth, why driving at all?
- Kirby64 7y ago
  The vast majority of people drive because they need to go some place. You're in the minority here if you want a car that's doing that sort of thing during their morning commute. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good manual transmission car, but if I'm just putting around, I'd rather not deal with that.

jazzyjackson 7y ago

Having lived in manhattan I can attest that the cars are just about the last source of noise pollution I noticed when contrasted with larger vehicles and construction. I think a 1% increase in taxes would be totally justifiable for quality of life to replace all the garbage trucks with electric vehicles (or at least buy em some damn mufflers!) Maybe we can divert some R&D funds to engineering a quiet jackhammer. If I had stayed in the city any longer I would have become a politician running on the platform that we use all the subway trains as garbage / freight / delivery haulers, and put light rail up and down the avenues. cars banned below 110th st (you too deBlasio !)

brokenmachine 7y ago
Leaf blowers are astonishingly loud. There must be a way to make them quieter, but it seems that no manufacturers are doing that. Seems there might be an opportunity there, "buy the only leaf blower that doesn't make your neighbors want to murder you"!
- Doxin 7y ago
  I can imagine quieter leaf blowers selling worse because they seem less powerful to potential buyers.
- rbanffy 7y ago
  Has Dyson ever looked into that?

neuralRiot 7y ago

To each its own, smooth cars are the most boring thing for me, automatic/ gearless and smooth, why driving at all?

Kirby64 7y ago
The vast majority of people drive because they need to go some place. You're in the minority here if you want a car that's doing that sort of thing during their morning commute. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good manual transmission car, but if I'm just putting around, I'd rather not deal with that.