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That's why in the EU they have introduced requirements for electric cars to make artificial sounds. Sometimes one of them drives past and it sounds like a space

by est31 3y ago

That's why in the EU they have introduced requirements for electric cars to make artificial sounds. Sometimes one of them drives past and it sounds like a spaceship from a sci fi movie lol.

aqfamnzc 3y ago
The EVs/hybrids I've encountered in the US seem to have artificial sound as well when no ICE is running, including the Prius.
- eulers_secret 3y ago
  Yes, since 2010: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sounds https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sou... They turn off over ~18MPH, though. After that, tire noise is much louder. As loud as an ICE car. So, realistically, you’d hear a Prius if it’s going normal road speeds. Side note: I wish the sound was more pleasant. When multiple cars are moving in a lot I call it the “choir of the damned”. They’re also louder than ICE cars and that’s kinda lame, we moved backwards WRT noise.
  - zbrozek 3y ago
    Both the regulation and folks' implementation of it is too conservative.
  - emn13 3y ago
    I live in the EU, and EVs are much quieter than ICE cars at low speeds in my day-to-day experience. The volume levels need to be raised significantly from my perspective; they're dangerously low here. There are quite a lot of kids on the roads here, and the difference in audibility between ICE and EV cars is concerning. Are you saying the typical EVs you hear are _louder_ than ICE cars where you live? As to the pleasantness of the noise - yeah, that seems to be a manufacturer's choice, or perhaps even driver choice? And let's hope just like annoying ring-tones of years past that the current selection dies out soon...
    - mcny 3y ago
      > Are you saying the typical EVs you hear are _louder_ than ICE cars where you live? ICE cars are pretty quiet where I live. Either that or there is so much ambient noise that I've lost some of my hearing but either way I don't hear much of an engine noise with recent cars.
      - emn13 3y ago
        Oh they're quiet here too - it's just that (most) EVs tend to be almost inaudible. They'll make a very quiet whirring noise sometimes, but the volume is so low that you'll easily miss em. I don't know the people driving these cars well; perhaps they modded them (seems unlikely, given the neighborhood), or perhaps they're old enough to have escaped new requirements; regardless - they're too quiet here in my sample size of 1 neighborhood in NL.
    - sgerenser 3y ago
      My RAV4 Prime is much louder than an ICE at low speeds, especially in reverse. It’s so loud it’s sparked a bunch of videos and discussion on how to lower the volume: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q1UqicqdzFE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q1UqicqdzFE Some have figured out how to disable it completely (just pulling the noisemaker causes a fault code to trigger) but quieting it down to roughly the volume of an ICE seems more reasonable to me.
      - emn13 3y ago
        That noise sounds bad, and unreasonable. I suppose I've just been lucky not to live near anybody that has a car making that kind of noise. Irrespective of the volume it is remarkable why any car designer thought that this was the right _kind_ of noise for the car to emit. Somebody chose that soundtrack, and you kind of have to wonder why...
- gambiting 3y ago
  Volvo plug-in hybrids don't make any noise when driving in EV-only mode. They are super stealthy, you have to be super careful when driving around a car park because no one is aware you're around them.
  - bartread 3y ago
    Yeah, I particularly enjoy being able to sneak up on people in a giant estate/station wagon.
    - gambiting 3y ago
      I mean, I'm not saying this is a good thing. Just an observation that not all hybrids emit noise when driving with the ICE off.
      - sgerenser 3y ago
        Regulation in the U.S. requires it: “After several additional delays, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued its final ruling in February 2018. It requires hybrids and electric vehicles travelling at less than 18.6 mph (30 km/h) to emit warning sounds that pedestrians must be able to hear over background noises. The regulation requires full compliance in September 2020, but 50% of "quiet" vehicles must have the warning sounds by September 2019.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sounds#United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sou...
bartread 3y ago
This is one of the most retrograde pieces of legislative nonsense imaginable. Just when significantly cutting noise pollution from motor vehicles in urban areas is finally within our grasp we toss it away by forcing them to make stupid and annoying UFO noises on the grounds of nebulous safety concerns. There were any number of ways of solving this that would have been less annoying and better for peoples' health[0]. For one thing, most people are able to use their eyes and will learn soon enough that EVs don't make much noise at low speeds and will keep an eye out for them. How do I know this? I live in Cambridge, UK, which is brimming with cyclists. They don't make much noise either, but you learn to look out for them (and very quickly too). And for those who are partially sighted or blind some sort of warning device + appropriate signal could no doubt have been engineered and legislated. But, no, we've gone for stupid noises instead. [0] We now, of course, know that noise pollution does in fact cause health issues and, I'd argue, these outweigh the safety argument.
- mordae 3y ago
  From what I've heard, EVs are about as noisy as regular cars at speeds relevant to the noise pollution issue. Check out: https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8?t=815 https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8?t=815
- MontyCarloHall 3y ago
  >And for those who are partially sighted or blind some sort of warning device + appropriate signal could no doubt have been engineered and legislated. What do you have in mind? I can’t think of anything as effective as sound—the blind person needs no special hardware to perceive it, and it can be easily spatially localized.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  You are utterly overblowing one part (noise pollution from EVs, which is really just a bit louder humm, for whatever personal reasons you have) and ignoring the additional, massive and instant benefits of actually saving lives. I definitely appreciate the added noise, so do my small kids, and they don't have to learn this from having school mate killed by ultra quiet car, same for ie elderly. Not living on this planet alone, did you notice? Noise pollution from ie ambulance, sports car, basically any motorbike, old car, trucks and so on is much much bigger. Where is your outrage for those? And no, noise pollution from these cars discussed is not causing massive health issues that outweigh people getting maimed and killed by them, thats just your personal preferences (like not owning a car because you are young without a family etc) you would like to push on whole society for whatever personal reasons.
WirelessGigabit 3y ago
Same in the USA, and it his horribly implemented. Before this a Prius or any modern car would be dead silent at a stop because of stop-start technology. And even those small 1.6L don't make that much noise when idling. Now you hear all these cars making their high-pitched UFO sound. And it is VERY irritating.

by est31 3y ago

That's why in the EU they have introduced requirements for electric cars to make artificial sounds. Sometimes one of them drives past and it sounds like a spaceship from a sci fi movie lol.

aqfamnzc 3y ago

The EVs/hybrids I've encountered in the US seem to have artificial sound as well when no ICE is running, including the Prius.

eulers_secret 3y ago
Yes, since 2010: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sounds https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sou... They turn off over ~18MPH, though. After that, tire noise is much louder. As loud as an ICE car. So, realistically, you’d hear a Prius if it’s going normal road speeds. Side note: I wish the sound was more pleasant. When multiple cars are moving in a lot I call it the “choir of the damned”. They’re also louder than ICE cars and that’s kinda lame, we moved backwards WRT noise.
- zbrozek 3y ago
  Both the regulation and folks' implementation of it is too conservative.
- emn13 3y ago
  I live in the EU, and EVs are much quieter than ICE cars at low speeds in my day-to-day experience. The volume levels need to be raised significantly from my perspective; they're dangerously low here. There are quite a lot of kids on the roads here, and the difference in audibility between ICE and EV cars is concerning. Are you saying the typical EVs you hear are _louder_ than ICE cars where you live? As to the pleasantness of the noise - yeah, that seems to be a manufacturer's choice, or perhaps even driver choice? And let's hope just like annoying ring-tones of years past that the current selection dies out soon...
  - mcny 3y ago
    > Are you saying the typical EVs you hear are _louder_ than ICE cars where you live? ICE cars are pretty quiet where I live. Either that or there is so much ambient noise that I've lost some of my hearing but either way I don't hear much of an engine noise with recent cars.
    - emn13 3y ago
      Oh they're quiet here too - it's just that (most) EVs tend to be almost inaudible. They'll make a very quiet whirring noise sometimes, but the volume is so low that you'll easily miss em. I don't know the people driving these cars well; perhaps they modded them (seems unlikely, given the neighborhood), or perhaps they're old enough to have escaped new requirements; regardless - they're too quiet here in my sample size of 1 neighborhood in NL.
  - sgerenser 3y ago
    My RAV4 Prime is much louder than an ICE at low speeds, especially in reverse. It’s so loud it’s sparked a bunch of videos and discussion on how to lower the volume: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q1UqicqdzFE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q1UqicqdzFE Some have figured out how to disable it completely (just pulling the noisemaker causes a fault code to trigger) but quieting it down to roughly the volume of an ICE seems more reasonable to me.
    - emn13 3y ago
      That noise sounds bad, and unreasonable. I suppose I've just been lucky not to live near anybody that has a car making that kind of noise. Irrespective of the volume it is remarkable why any car designer thought that this was the right _kind_ of noise for the car to emit. Somebody chose that soundtrack, and you kind of have to wonder why...
gambiting 3y ago
Volvo plug-in hybrids don't make any noise when driving in EV-only mode. They are super stealthy, you have to be super careful when driving around a car park because no one is aware you're around them.
- bartread 3y ago
  Yeah, I particularly enjoy being able to sneak up on people in a giant estate/station wagon.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    I mean, I'm not saying this is a good thing. Just an observation that not all hybrids emit noise when driving with the ICE off.
    - sgerenser 3y ago
      Regulation in the U.S. requires it: “After several additional delays, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued its final ruling in February 2018. It requires hybrids and electric vehicles travelling at less than 18.6 mph (30 km/h) to emit warning sounds that pedestrians must be able to hear over background noises. The regulation requires full compliance in September 2020, but 50% of "quiet" vehicles must have the warning sounds by September 2019.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sounds#United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sou...

bartread 3y ago

This is one of the most retrograde pieces of legislative nonsense imaginable. Just when significantly cutting noise pollution from motor vehicles in urban areas is finally within our grasp we toss it away by forcing them to make stupid and annoying UFO noises on the grounds of nebulous safety concerns. There were any number of ways of solving this that would have been less annoying and better for peoples' health[0]. For one thing, most people are able to use their eyes and will learn soon enough that EVs don't make much noise at low speeds and will keep an eye out for them. How do I know this? I live in Cambridge, UK, which is brimming with cyclists. They don't make much noise either, but you learn to look out for them (and very quickly too). And for those who are partially sighted or blind some sort of warning device + appropriate signal could no doubt have been engineered and legislated. But, no, we've gone for stupid noises instead. [0] We now, of course, know that noise pollution does in fact cause health issues and, I'd argue, these outweigh the safety argument.

mordae 3y ago
From what I've heard, EVs are about as noisy as regular cars at speeds relevant to the noise pollution issue. Check out: https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8?t=815 https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8?t=815
MontyCarloHall 3y ago
>And for those who are partially sighted or blind some sort of warning device + appropriate signal could no doubt have been engineered and legislated. What do you have in mind? I can’t think of anything as effective as sound—the blind person needs no special hardware to perceive it, and it can be easily spatially localized.
saiya-jin 3y ago
You are utterly overblowing one part (noise pollution from EVs, which is really just a bit louder humm, for whatever personal reasons you have) and ignoring the additional, massive and instant benefits of actually saving lives. I definitely appreciate the added noise, so do my small kids, and they don't have to learn this from having school mate killed by ultra quiet car, same for ie elderly. Not living on this planet alone, did you notice? Noise pollution from ie ambulance, sports car, basically any motorbike, old car, trucks and so on is much much bigger. Where is your outrage for those? And no, noise pollution from these cars discussed is not causing massive health issues that outweigh people getting maimed and killed by them, thats just your personal preferences (like not owning a car because you are young without a family etc) you would like to push on whole society for whatever personal reasons.

WirelessGigabit 3y ago

Same in the USA, and it his horribly implemented. Before this a Prius or any modern car would be dead silent at a stop because of stop-start technology. And even those small 1.6L don't make that much noise when idling. Now you hear all these cars making their high-pitched UFO sound. And it is VERY irritating.