Hybrid Cars May Include Fake Vroom for Safety

By JIM MOTAVALLI Published: October 13, 2009

For decades, automakers have been on a quest to make cars quieter: an auto that purrs, and glides almost silently in traffic.

They have finally succeeded. Plug-in hybrid and electric cars (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/e/electric_vehicles/index.html?&inline=nyt-classifier), it turns out, not only reduce air pollution, they cut noise pollution as well with their whisper-quiet motors. But that has created a different problem. They aren’t noisy enough.

So safety experts, worried that hybrids pose a threat if pedestrians, children and others can’t hear them approaching, want automakers to supply some digitally enhanced vroom. Indeed, just as cellphones have ring tones, “car tones” may not be far behind — an option for owners of electric vehicles to choose the sound their cars emit.

Working with Hollywood special-effects wizards, some hybrid auto companies have started tinkering in sound studios, rather than machine shops, to customize engine noises. The Fisker Karma, an $87,900 plug-in hybrid expected to go on sale next year, will emit a sound — pumped out of speakers in the bumpers — that the company founder, Henrik Fisker, describes as “a cross between a starship and a Formula One (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/formula_one/index.html?inline=nyt-org) car.”

Nissan is also consulting with the film industry on sounds that could be emitted by its forthcoming Leaf battery-electric vehicle, while Toyota (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/toyota_motor_corporation/index.html?inline=nyt-org) has been working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_highway_traffic_safety_administration/index.html?inline=nyt-org), the National Federation of the Blind and the Society of Automotive Engineers on sounds for electric vehicles.

“One possibility is choosing your own noise,” said Nathalie Bauters, a spokeswoman for BMW (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/bayerische_motoren_werke_ag/index.html?inline=nyt-org)’s Mini division, who added that such technology could be added to one of BMW’s electric vehicles in the future.

The notion that battery E.V.’s and plug-in hybrids might be too quiet has gained backing in Congress, among federal regulators and on the Internet. The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, introduced early this year, would require a federal safety standard to protect pedestrians from ultra-quiet cars.

Karen Aldana, a spokeswoman for traffic safety agency, which is also working on the issue, said, “We’re looking at data on noise and E.V. safety, but manufacturers are starting to address it voluntarily.”

A Toyota spokesman, John Hanson, said: “I don’t know of any injuries related to this, but it is a concern. We are moving rapidly toward broader use of electrification in vehicles, and it’s a fact that these cars are very quiet and could pose a risk to unsighted people.”

A study published last year by the University of California (http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_california/index.html?inline=nyt-org), Riverside and financed by the National Federation of the Blind evaluated the effect of sounds emitted by hybrid and internal-combustion cars traveling at 5 miles per hour.

People listening in a lab could correctly detect a gas-powered car’s approach when it was 28 feet away, but could not hear the arrival of a hybrid operating in silent battery mode until it was only seven feet away.

Some electric-vehicle drivers have taken a low-tech approach to alerting pedestrians. When Paul Scott of Santa Monica, Calif., drives his 2002 Toyota RAV4 (http://autos.nytimes.com/2008/Toyota/RAV4/286/3327/291812/researchOverview.aspx?inline=nyt-classifier) electric car, he often rolls down the windows along busy streets and turns up his radio so people know his virtually silent vehicle is there.

Mr. Scott, vice president of the advocacy group Plug In America, said he would prefer giving drivers control over whether the motor makes noise, unlike, say, the Fisker Karma, which will make its warning noise automatically.

“Quiet cars need to stay quiet — we worked so hard to make them that way,” he said. “It’s the driver’s responsibility not to hit somebody.”

Mr. Scott has already warmed up to the idea of a car ring tone.

“It should be a manually operated noisemaker, a button on the steering wheel triggering a recording of your choice,” he said. “It could play ‘In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida,’ or anything you like.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/automobiles/14hybrid.html

How about a TIE fighter?

Yeah, I almost stepped off the curb into one. Maybe I could sue!!

Reminds me of an old movie where a young Dan Akroyd played a blind guy. He was doing funny things like using fish food as chicken seasoning, etc.. He's listening to cross the street and it's quiet. So he steps off right into a bicycle. The rider goes flying!!

Custom sounds must be utterly banished before they start!

The sounds must be utterly standardized within a given range so no one mistakes an idiot playing a sound clip for a fellow pedestrian w/ loud radio instead of the one ton behometh about to kill them!

In no circumstance should the sound ever be under the driver's control to activate either! It's not the cars you see or hear that get you, it's the one you don't Conversely, it's not the peds you see you gotta worry about as a driver, it's the ones you don't see.

These are lethal circumstances were dealing with and beyond the realm of 'being cool'. Custom ring tones on a phone are hateful enough, but they can't potentially cause your DEATH.

Custom ring tones on a phone are hateful enough, but they can't potentially cause your DEATH.

Actually, I heard a "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" ring tone the other day.

I died a little.

Mine plays: "Bring Out Your Dead"

Steve

Can you imagine a car with the sound of the Jupiter II!!!

As the car accelerated, the sound would also speed up.

How about a turbine whistle, like the Batmobile?

Unfortunately I'll never have the chance to choose what sound my car makes. You'll never see me behind the wheel of a hybrid or an electric, because they don't have stick shifts.

Every car I've owned has had a stick shift. Driving an automatic is BORING.

But it would be kind of cool to have a car that sounds like a jet turbine, or a Star Trek phaser, or the alien ships in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (whose distinctive whirring sound was actually the pumps of a sewage treatment plant).

Why not just put a playing card in the spokes of the wheels?

Unfortunately I'll never have the chance to choose what sound my car makes. You'll never see me behind the wheel of a hybrid or an electric, because they don't have stick shifts.

Every car I've owned has had a stick shift. Driving an automatic is BORING.



I felt that way for a looong time. Then the highways on my commute were rebuilt to include a daily 10-minute traffic jam at a 3-lane-to-1 merge. After a year of that my clutch foot got so tired I could barely walk on it when I got home.

Welcome to thee, automatic transmission!

Loud pipes save lives. Maybe electric cars will become popular after all of us born before 1960 die off. You wont see me in one. They're not...I dont know the right word but I know John Wayne wouldn't have owned one. They're just not...

Wild. We see some minor potential of cutting down on noise pollution and move to head it off. And heaven forbid that it not require more energy consumption and open up an opportunity for us to buy more worthless garbage. Why not just go with the human equivalent of a deer whistle, a device on the front of the cars to that uses the wind to make a sound that warns the car is coming?

I'll bet we're going to end up with the audio equivalent of the big-breasted mudflap girls.

Loud pipes save lives. Maybe electric cars will become popular after all of us born before 1960 die off. You wont see me in one. They're not...I dont know the right word but I know John Wayne wouldn't have owned one. They're just not...Are you implying, sir, that there's something unmanly about an electric car?

Bollocks!
http://api.ning.com/files/R4gFE56WALejiLzLF-vE-141HXGYWussLiLrv2aW5xxW-7JLanwuNHX7j470xCSe2z2-xO5OaqbjWiuS3zzlPcaIA611nYu6/83145717_71c1258d6a.jpg

Come to think of it, when we're out for a walk, I don't think it's even the engine sound we hear when a car is coming up behind us. I think it's more the sound of the tires on the road, the wind over the car - engines are fairly imperceptible from a block away as it is.

Come to think of it, when we're out for a walk, I don't think it's even the engine sound we hear when a car is coming up behind us. I think it's more the sound of the tires on the road, the wind over the car - engines are fairly imperceptible from a block away as it is.

Exactly.
And if it is anything like around here, you can hear them bouncing around all the potholes more than you can hear the engines.

Mary's Mini Cooper does make a little engine noise - I can tell when she's pulling in the driveway because the engine makes this little "Wheeeee!" sound, like it's having so much fun being a Mini Cooper. :) But you have to be within about 50 feet to hear it.

Loud pipes save lives.

I wanted my first motorcycle to be as silent as possible. When talking with a few coworkers about bikes, they were horriffed by my idea. Loud pipes save lives and is often the only way you know a bike is coming up on you.

I've stepped in front of a couple Prius that I never saw or heard coming along. Actually I did hear them, but the low sound told me they were dozens of feet away and not dozens of inches and I would have been hit had the driver not seen me first.

I don't mind if elec cars are given some sci-fi sound, however, it must be a standard across the board. The idea of custom ring tones is what nauseates me. The sound must be immediately identifiable as nothing other than a vehicle.

As a side note, spinning hubcaps utterly infuriate me as well. The way you judge another's speed and motion is relative to another object. When the body is moving at one speed and the wheel's are moving at an entirely different speed, it causes doubt and hesitation. I don't know about anywhere else lately, but driving in los angeles is a life and death competition every moment and the slightest doubt will kill.

. . . I don't know about anywhere else lately, but driving in los angeles is a life and death competition every moment and the slightest doubt will kill.Obviously you've never driven in half the countries of Europe and Asia.

Drivers in Los Angeles are still among the most competent and courteous in the world. After all, most folks here depend on their cars for survival. It's just the few bad apples that louse it up for the rest of us.

I want my car to sound like the Jetsons' car!

You wanna experience highway combat, come to Bergen County, NJ. You'll see less furious maneuvering in a Star Wars space battle. And more courtesy. And more safety.

Guy cut me off without signalling the other day. I beeped, signalled and went around him on the left. I could see he was talking on his cell phone, of course, hence the lack of attention and courtesy, and the inability to use the signal lever. As I passed him, he gave me an apologetic wave with his left hand, thus having no hands on the steering wheel at all
. :freak:

But at least he did give me a wave. Most people around here, if you hit the horn when they cut you off, they slam their brakes on and flip you off. Sociopathic, isn't it?

Yeah. I want my hybrid to be The Tumbler. Not the movie prop. A real one.