If you've ever been around an electric car, one of the first things you notice is how quietly it runs. It has been suggested that perhaps electric cars are too quiet, and pose a safety hazard for hearing and seeing impaired pedestrians at crosswalks, or in parking lots.
Currently the auto industry is coming up with unique sounds to alert pedestrians that electric vehicles (EV's) are approaching.
According to an article that appeared in the NY Times today, “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 car.”
Is the answer to the quiet, the annoying “beep beep beep” we are accustomed to hearing when trucks and other heavy vehicles back up “car tones?”
Should there be some standardized sound these vehicles make as they travel? Should owners of these vehicles be allowed to customize their car tones, like people customize their cell phone rings?
Electric car makers and other interested people are suggesting that this could stoke a new “car tone” industry.
Can you imagine the potential cacophony of sounds you might hear in a parking lot at a mall as all these electric cars are moving about and backing up?
How about the potential noise levels as guests leave a neighborhood party, in the middle of the night, if these car tones are going to accompany all EV movement?
The issue is actually a serious one. Drivers in most vehicles, even when listening to normal levels of music, or normal levels of conversation in a car with closed windows, can currently hear a gas powered car from an average of 28 feet away. But an EV can only be heard when it is seven feet away. By the time you hear that car coming, it is too late to react.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Society of Automotive Engineers are working on standards, and both Houses of Congress have introduced The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act, requiring a federal safety standard to protect pedestrians from EV's. The bill already has 140 co-sponsors in the House.
Isn’t it sad that after the auto industry has worked so hard to make cars quieter, and finally achieved that goal with EV’s, the quietness could potentially endanger lives?
I hope Congress is incorporating limits on decibel levels into the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act.
(Electric car photo "The Tesla Has Landed"
Written by Shelby Bateson
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