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A comment on What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World. Parent comment

Re:What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the W... by squarefoot on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @04:06AM (#15958797)
"I'll probably feel slightly nostalgic about the sound and smell of fuel-burning cars someday"

I don't know about the smell, but once people realize how dangerous is a car you can't hear coming, they will start adding some sound, and what's better than a traditional car sound? The sound will be easily faked using samples from well known engines played according to the current speed by transducers under the car. There will be probably a market for such addons and traditional auto makers could even patent their sound once they realize there is a market for their recordings. Allowing paid download in realtime of "today's hottest car sound" in seconds when you start the car in the morning could become a business, so that news like someone arrested for pirating the sound of a 911 Carrera could even become the norm one day:)

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Re:What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the W... by Doxin on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @04:09AM (#15958821)
Modern gas car engines are already pretty much inaudible over tire noise at slowish speeds. Electric cars don't make any less tire noise. People will manage without artificially adding sounds to electric vehicles.
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Re:What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the W... by testestx on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @04:45AM (#15959000)
Car sounds are important for small children and animals in the street though.
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Re:What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the W... by Cthulhu_ on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @09:25AM (#15960356)
At speeds below tire noise, drivers should be very careful about those anyway. Plus modern cars have collision detection hard- and software too. Do electric cars have better braking performance?
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Re:What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the W... by Doxin on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @06:15AM (#15959349)
And as I've stated at those speeds tire noise is dominating the overal sound for most cars already.
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Re:What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the W... by ju-st on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @06:02AM (#15959317)
That's why many/most EVs have loudspeakers which make "electric car noises" below 20-30kmph. Above that the tire noise becomes dominant and there is no noise level difference between EV and ICE.
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Re:What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the W... by draugadrotten on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @04:28AM (#15958918)
> once people realize how dangerous is a car you can't hear coming, they will start adding some sound

Already there... I love this UFO sound from 2010: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motoringvideo/8015988/El...

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Re:What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the W... by KozmoNau7 on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @05:58AM (#15959305)
> once people realize how dangerous is a car you can't hear coming

Modern cars are already very quiet at low speeds, what you're actually hearing at higher speeds is tire noise and (to a lesser degree) wind noise.

Several solutions present themselves. Firstly, people should learn to use their eyes, dammit. Secondly, a lot of electric cars have subtle noisemakers when driving at low speeds.

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Re:What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the W... by cmrdporcupine on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @08:31AM (#15960038)
All EVs actually are currently required to have a noise added, unfortunately. My Volt makes a weird whirring that you can't hear inside the cabin, but can outside. The Leaf has an odd noise, and even has a backup 'beep beep' like you'd normally hear on tractors or bobcats, etc (tho quieter).
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Re:What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the W... by squarefoot on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @02:33PM (#15963363)
Good, didn't know that. Time to dust off that old analog synthesizer and make some modern car sounds!
[ Parent | on HN ]