MAKE | NEWS FROM THE FUTURE – Car Makers Create Engine Sounds for Electric Cars

Hot Topics:

By Phillip Torrone
Posted 2012/05/02 @ 3:00 pm
Category General

NEWS FROM THE FUTURE – Car Makers Create Engine Sounds for Electric Cars:

Audi is adding sound to its silent, electric car models with a synthetic solution called Audi e-sound.

Sounds like a TRON cycle. I wonder if they’ll eventually make download-able and purchase-able “engine tones”…

In the Maker Shed

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Calculator Kit from Spikenzie Labs

BrushBots

Brooklyn Aerodrome Flying Wing Kit

9 Responses to NEWS FROM THE FUTURE – Car Makers Create Engine Sounds for Electric Cars

Pete H on May 2nd, 2012 at 3:41 pm said:

I want the sound the Jetson’s car made!

Reply ↓
zof on May 2nd, 2012 at 3:44 pm said:

I want a car with someone saying vroom vroom the whole time.

Reply ↓
- jammitweapon on May 2nd, 2012 at 6:32 pm said:
  
  Close:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n17B_uFF4cA
  
  Reply ↓
Jeff Jukes on May 2nd, 2012 at 10:58 pm said:

Great idea, can mine sound like a steam train? There is a down side,as its an electric car, isn’t this just wasting battery power?

Reply ↓
CameronSS on May 2nd, 2012 at 11:46 pm said:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/s841

Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010, signed into law in January 2011. It doesn’t give any specific rules yet, but instead says that the DOT should come up with rules, on the premise that electric cars are an inherent danger to pedestrians because they are quiet. Somehow a near-silent Lexus is safe, though.

Reply ↓
Nick Badge on May 3rd, 2012 at 1:50 am said:

This is the most pointless thing ever. I want to buy an electric car, but I don’t want one if it is going to make a stupid, made up noise. Back in the ’90s, they were advertising that their cars were so quiet, people playing chess found doors creaking more of a din than a car driving past. What has changed?

People say it is for safety. What utter rubbish. You tend to hear the road noise a car produces well before you hear the engine, anyway. Unless of course the driver is driving around like a lunatic.

Proof that silent cars aren’t a problem: there aren’t reports of deaf people getting mown down by their hundreds. If you don’t look before crossing the road, natural selection will follow its course.

Reply ↓
- Ed on May 3rd, 2012 at 1:28 pm said:
  
  You don’t want an electric car with a stupid, made up noise? What does your cell phone sound like?
  
  Reply ↓
Anders Haglund on May 3rd, 2012 at 2:14 pm said:

Little(?) known fact: the clicking sound from the turn signals on most modern cars is either a recording played on a small speaker, or just a dummy relay. The actual blinking is done with solid-state components

Reply ↓
danielmcgregor on May 10th, 2012 at 1:05 pm said:

Congratulations Audi…
You have just invented the most pointless device ever.

No one wants electric cars that are noisy.

The fact that they are so quiet is why people like them.

Noise makes no difference what so ever. Pedestrians get knocked down by noisy
cars every day…
Looking left and right while crossing the street is the only thing that works

It’s a invention more useless than the space pen.

Reply ↓