Electric car sounds
Author
Discussion

Super Sonic

Original Poster:

9,958 posts

70 months

Friday 15th August
quotequote all
Electric cars are so quiet, I can imagine they will soon have some kind of noise making device for safety.
What kind of sound , given the choice, would you like your car to make?
I would have mine going "clippitty clop" like a horse, and the noise to be tied to the speed of the car. Can you imagine what a horse galloping at ninety would sound like?

DrDeAtH

3,654 posts

248 months

Friday 15th August
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Like a man with 2 coconut shell halves following his liege upon a quest....

andrewcliffe

1,333 posts

240 months

Friday 15th August
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TIE fighter

BunkMoreland

2,271 posts

23 months

Friday 15th August
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Super Sonic said:
Electric cars are so quiet, I can imagine they will soon have some kind of noise making device for safety.
What kind of sound , given the choice, would you like your car to make?
I would have mine going "clippitty clop" like a horse, and the noise to be tied to the speed of the car. Can you imagine what a horse galloping at ninety would sound like?
under 30mph EV have to emmit a sound.

I saw a AMG GT Mercedes recently (the big 4 door one) and the noise emitter rather oddly sounds like the first 6 or 7 seconds of this!





I'm not even joking! eek


The EV Smart cars made a spaceship noise!

ChocolateFrog

32,240 posts

189 months

Friday 15th August
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I quite like some of the Hans Zimmer BMWs.

They make the noises I was promised as a kid in Sci-fi movies.

billbring

270 posts

199 months

Friday 15th August
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Do they not already? my neighbour's car makes an annoying humming noise whenever they're coming and going and I had assumed this was artificial rather than the noise the electic motor naturally makes, but could very well be wrong.

At anything above walking pace, this idea that electric cars are silent is a fantasy. Electric cars are amongst the loudest on the road due to tyre noise and their enormous weight – in my experience, you can hear them coming long before a modern petrol car.

Edited by billbring on Friday 15th August 22:04

entropy

6,034 posts

219 months

Friday 15th August
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ChocolateFrog said:
I quite like some of the Hans Zimmer BMWs.

They make the noises I was promised as a kid in Sci-fi movies.
I'm disappointed a carmaker doesn't use the stock Hollywood high pitched turbine sound as used for the DeLorean in BTTF and Land Speeder in Star Wars



Oberheim

291 posts

7 months

Friday 15th August
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I’d like them to sound like this, at about 37 seconds in

https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/141...

andrewpandrew

881 posts

5 months

Friday 15th August
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Reminds me of one of my EV-hating neighbours who endlessly complains about how little noise EVs make. He has an old Border Collie who is deaf and blind, but for some reason he walks it without a lead on roads that have no pavements. We had a laugh at him the other day protesting about a “nuisance electric car”, only it turned out to be a petrol Toyota. I’d like to think he felt like a right tit, but I doubt it.


MDT

597 posts

188 months

Saturday 16th August
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billbring said:
At anything above walking pace, this idea that electric cars are silent is a fantasy. Electric cars are amongst the loudest on the road due to tyre noise and their enormous weight – in my experience, you can hear them coming long before a modern petrol car.
I spotted this phenomenon the other day while out walking the dog, the EV's which passed (at about 30-40mph) were certainly louder than a good few of the ICE cars.

Sheepshanks

37,565 posts

135 months

Saturday 16th August
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BunkMoreland said:
under 30mph EV have to emmit a sound.
It’s 20kmh, so 12mph.

Our road is 20mph limit - most people driving past are doing 25-30 - stand at the kerb and tyre roar is loud. It varies a bit by model and seems just the same for ICE and electric cars of similar size.

Johnd52

103 posts

132 months

Saturday 16th August
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I wonder when car makers will allow you to select appropriate sounds, as you do on your phone. A Prius that sounds like a NASCAR V8, or a Taycan milk float with rattling bottles. Could be entertaining.

ChocolateFrog

32,240 posts

189 months

Saturday 16th August
quotequote all
billbring said:
At anything above walking pace, this idea that electric cars are silent is a fantasy. Electric cars are amongst the loudest on the road due to tyre noise and their enormous weight – in my experience, you can hear them coming long before a modern petrol car.

Edited by billbring on Friday 15th August 22:04
By that logic the tyre noise from a HGV would be deafening if a couple of hundred kilos can make such a difference.

What's probably happening is you're noticing the tyre noise because there isn't 100 mini explosions going off every second a few feet away.

Killer2005

20,238 posts

244 months

Saturday 16th August
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hidetheelephants

30,683 posts

209 months

Saturday 16th August
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Most of the default noises just seem like variations on a slightly muffled milk float, which seems appropriate, and as said once you're over 15-20mph tyre noise predominates anyway.

andyb28

1,006 posts

134 months

Saturday 16th August
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andrewcliffe said:
TIE fighter
THIS ^^

We have the answer smile


Sheepshanks

37,565 posts

135 months

Saturday 16th August
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ChocolateFrog said:
By that logic the tyre noise from a HGV would be deafening if a couple of hundred kilos can make such a difference.

What's probably happening is you're noticing the tyre noise because there isn't 100 mini explosions going off every second a few feet away.
As our village has expanded there’s still a 40 limit on one of the roads in off the bypass. It’s not busy, so individual vehicles’ noise is noticeable. The tyre roar from cars varies by size - probably more tyre size than anything else. BMW SUVs are noticeably very noisy, as are Teslas. A bus or truck going past is deafening but tyre roar isn’t noticeable over the mechanical noise.

Paul Drawmer

5,053 posts

283 months

Saturday 16th August
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Ev pedestrian warning sounds became mandatory for new registrations after 1st July 2021. It is not retrospective, so my 2019 I3 did not have, and does not have to have the warning system.

I've been thinking of ways to add it though, as travelling through a tourist trap like Dartmouth earlier this week was 'interesting' at walking speed.

hidetheelephants

30,683 posts

209 months

Saturday 16th August
quotequote all
Paul Drawmer said:
Ev pedestrian warning sounds became mandatory for new registrations after 1st July 2021. It is not retrospective, so my 2019 I3 did not have, and does not have to have the warning system.

I've been thinking of ways to add it though, as travelling through a tourist trap like Dartmouth earlier this week was 'interesting' at walking speed.
This is an OEM AVAS speaker, the datasheet is available from Hella so you'd just need to work out how to get a suitable feed from your wiring loom. Probably worth finding out what BMW fitted after that date, although no doubt they'll charge like a wounded rhino for the parts; perhaps a used one from a crashed i3 will be the easiest way to do it.

andrewpandrew

881 posts

5 months

Saturday 16th August
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Sheepshanks said:
It varies a bit by model and seems just the same for ICE and electric cars of similar size.
That would be my observation too, i.e there is no difference. On a modern car, ICE or EV (and assuming we’re not talking about something with a loud exhaust), the dominant sound is tyre noise and the sound of a large object moving through the air.