Should EVs Make Artificial Sounds at Low Speeds?

[physicsofx]

Please don't misunderstand me. I would prefer no noise at all.

Our world is full of extraneous and even damaging noise. This is just one more reason for electric vehicles. Imagine a busy intersection without roaring engines -- our world would be significantly nicer to live in. I think any attempt to mandate noise making for electric vehicles is misguided and counterproductive. I will always advocate for the personal responsibility we all share for driving safely around other vehicles, pedestrians, animals, and cyclists. I object to any mandate for a non-defeatable noise maker (like my LEAF had).

 

[smac]

Please don't misunderstand me. I would prefer no noise at all.

Our world is full of extraneous and even damaging noise. This is just one more reason for electric vehicles. Imagine a busy intersection without roaring engines -- our world would be significantly nicer to live in. I think any attempt to mandate noise making for electric vehicles is misguided and counterproductive. I will always advocate for the personal responsibility we all share for driving safely around other vehicles, pedestrians, animals, and cyclists. I object to any mandate for a non-defeatable noise maker (like my LEAF had).

Ironically the AVAS rules are actually part of a broader piece of legislation aimed at sound reduction!

https://publications.europa.eu/en/p...8a835-e656-11e3-8cd4-01aa75ed71a1/language-en

My understanding is they have determined that although there were noise limits in place before, the method of testing was not representative.

I would agree with this assessment. I also suspect manufacturers have been gaming the rules with exhaust flaps that kick in over specific RPMs, giving "pass the test when in the highest gear", but hugely over the prescribed limits when in more typical driving using lower gears and higher RPM's. (My understanding is the tests use the same glacial acceleration curves as the NEDC cycle, meaning it's entirely possible with a high performance car to achieve the cycle using a fraction of it's rev range, hence the flap not opening.)

Compare that to plenty of race circuits here, which have noise limits on track days. These are enforced by drive-by decibel meters.. This is really to address residents concerns who live near the tracks, particularly for cars that aren't road legal, but nowadays some factory equipped cars can't pass these tests.

It says something when a car is too loud for a race track but allowed on the road!!!!

 

[RobStark]

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/arti...ng-delayed-quiet-cars-rule-extending-deadline

The long-delayed rules, which were first demanded by Congress in 2010, will require automakers like Tesla Inc, Nissan Motor Co and General Motors Co to add sounds to vehicles when they are moving at speeds of up to 18.6 miles per hour (30 km per hour) to help prevent injuries among pedestrians, cyclists and the blind.

The regulation requires the sounds be added to all "quiet" vehicles by September 2020 - a year behind the schedule announced by the administration of former President Barack Obama in November 2016. Automakers must have the sounds in 50 percent of vehicles by September 2019.


The agency estimates the odds of a hybrid vehicle being involved in a pedestrian crash are 19 percent higher than with a traditional gasoline-powered vehicle. About 125,000 pedestrians and cyclists are injured annually on roads in the United States

 

[arnis]

So 24k more accidents. Or 264 million noise modules. That makes 1 accident per 11 000 modules.
Hope that module costs less than 1$, otherwise it's waste of money. It's that simple.

PS: I'm pretty sure in about 10 years, noisemaker advantage will fade to near 0%.
THE SAME thing happened with 3rd brake light. When it came, less rear-ending accidents happened.
For a while. Now when everybody has that, accident rate came up back to where it started.

 

[RobStark]

So 24k more accidents. Or 264 million noise modules. That makes 1 accident per 11 000 modules.
Hope that module costs less than 1$, otherwise it's waste of money. It's that simple.

PS: I'm pretty sure in about 10 years, noisemaker advantage will fade to near 0%.
THE SAME thing happened with 3rd brake light. When it came, less rear-ending accidents happened.
For a while. Now when everybody has that, accident rate came up back to where it started.

Vision impaired people being hit at 18 mph is no small matter.

Edited : Originally had "hearing" impaired. But obviously the noise maker is for the vision impaired.

 

[arnis]

Hah, forgot that. People who can't hear. Especially quiet <60dB sound-generators.
AEB with pedestrian detection, that will actually work.


Breaking news - new legislation requires EV's to roar at 90dB when reversing.

 

[malcolm]

Breaking news - new legislation requires EV's to roar at 90dB when reversing.

Any link for that one? Seems excessive.

 

[mongo]

Any link for that one? Seems excessive.

Think it was sarcasm...
However, the Ford Mustang had a good neighbor mode added to NOT do a really loud start up/ excessive exhaust noise rev routine (backs out the added rumble).

 

[J1mbo]

This kind of noise pollution is genuinely annoying:

Was in town recently where 2 ICE trucks has this fitted. One was turning right, the other was coming in the other direction and turning left into the same street. Not convinced that this genuinely helps TBH.

Plus it is getting to the point in many places where you are more likely to be hit by a cyclist than a car.

 

[swaltner]

This kind of noise pollution is genuinely annoying:

Ugh! In what world does that seem like a good idea?

 

[Ulmo]

This kind of noise pollution is genuinely annoying:

Was in town recently where 2 ICE trucks has this fitted. One was turning right, the other was coming in the other direction and turning left into the same street. Not convinced that this genuinely helps TBH.

Plus it is getting to the point in many places where you are more likely to be hit by a cyclist than a car.

That is an unacceptable noise. It also doesn't inform anyone which direction the vehicle is going (unless you listen to the undecipherable speech). It should do a high-low tone for left and low-high tone for right, and all of it should be in mid range Hertz, not make you go killer ear damaging high pitch.

Edit: this seems tacky but is a totally acceptable sound:

The sound Tesla gets should be something at least as good as that. (Not some beep!)

 

[Ulmo]

Ugh! In what world does that seem like a good idea?

None. It is intentionally a bad idea.

 

[Dr. J]

Plus it is getting to the point in many places where you are more likely to be hit by a cyclist than a car.

Yes, but....Getting creamed by a ~200 lb. cyclist is not the same as getting creamed by a ~4,000 lb car/truck/SUV, given equivalent velocity, right? Right?

 

[wdolson]

It would be much smarter to have the system be an optional thing that the driver can turn on. I can see where it may be useful when pulling out of a parking garage or someplace else where you may not be easily visible. But a significant amount of the time when cars are moving under 18 mph, they are on the freeway where there are no pedestrians. Rush hour in major cities will become an audio nightmare with thousands if not millions of cars all emitting some kind of electronic noise to warn the non-existent pedestrians.

Another problem with noise makers is they are usually one frequency which can be very difficult to determine where it's coming from. About 20 years ago I read an article in the WSJ about someone who had developed a multi-frequency emergency vehicle siren. The article started out with the scenario your stuck in traffic and you hear an emergency vehicle siren and everyone starts looking around for the lights. It pointed out that the world wasn't always like that. Back when sirens were mechanical and multi-frequency, it was much easier to determine where the sound was coming from. I remember when I was a kid I could almost always tell which direction a siren was coming from and you can't with the new sirens that have been in use the last 30 years or so. (The guy who had come up with the multi-frequency electronic siren couldn't sell it for some reason.)

Almost inevitably the low speed beepers will be mono-frequency (because that's cheaper) and tell you there is a quiet motor car around, but you won't know where it's coming from unless you look. And for blind people, they will be assaulted with a sea of sounds all mono-frequency and they won't know where they are coming from.

A reasonable law would be something along these lines:
1) Cars must have a low speed noise maker that can be turned on by the driver.
2) The noise maker must be such that someone who is vision impaired can tell which direction it's coming from.
3) And if you really want to protect people mandate when the system must be turn on:
a) When you will be emerging from someplace with poor visibility and pedestrians may be about such as an urban parking garage
b) When the driver sees a blind person and is x distance from them or less when moving at slow speed.

 

[J1mbo]

Yes, but....Getting creamed by a ~200 lb. cyclist is not the same as getting creamed by a ~4,000 lb car/truck/SUV, given equivalent velocity, right? Right?

Bikes dont have a big pedstrian-friendly crumple zone. Instead, they have handlebars etc. which concentrate the force of an impact on a very small area.

18mph is enough for a bike to kill.

 

[smac]

@wdolson Going by the European cars that already have AVAS systems fitted, the Zoe and EU-spec i8 being the two I've first hand experience of the noise is definitely not a monotone beep. It is specifically designed to be directional and speed sensitive (changing in tone and volume).

Again my first hand experience is it works, without being too annoying. It's really noticeable when for example in the Tesla I'd be driving through supermarket parking lots / small office side roads that sort of thing, and I'd often "sneak up" on pedestrians, particularly if they are in a group chatting. So you either press the horn (which is overkill and far too loud / aggressive), or wait for one of the group to glance round and spot you, when then they all jump out of the way with a surprised look on their face.

The only time I've heard the system in action from the cabin in the i8 is with the window down in a multi level parking lot, otherwise you cannot tell it's on. It sounds a bit like the inverter noise you hear in a Model S under hard acceleration. I have noticed a big drop in the number of "sneak ups" as a result of the AVAS.

My biggest complaint of the i8 system is how you turn on/off the system is navigating through menus in the infotainment system to select the setting. I know many Tesla fans aren't fans of button clutter, but when Tesla do have to implement it, I hope the UX guys locate the virtual button in such a a way as to make it easy to enable / disable. I have the same complaint for EU Tesla cars where rear fog lights are mandatory, but require menu navigation and multiple presses to switch on, but in fairness this is fairly infrequently needed so not as much of an issue. If the AVAS system similarly needs multi press menu navigation, and bear in mind the regulations say it must default to on, then for most they'll never switch it off.

I couldn't find a public clip of the BMW's system in action, but you can hear the Zoe's sound which is similar (at least in the first of the 3 settings). Externally the BMW is slightly quieter than the Zoe's
Designing Sound Effects To Gently Warn Pedestrians Of Silent Vehicles

 

[arnis]

Golden rule is:
Frequencies above 1 000Hz humans can't detect the height of sound source.
Frequencies above 10 000Hz humans can't detect direction of that sound.
E-tron sound appears to be low enough to be functional.

I agree. There are situations where sound is useful and situations where it is nonsense (on the road).
I've tuned Nissan Leaf's soundbox settings so it doesn't activate whirr when I'm in drive,
but it does chime when I reverse. It's actually helping me. When I'm in the middle of parking lot,
people assume vehicles move in forward direction so they just stand behind me, infinitely, even though
I actually want to back into a parking spot. Forward noise is dumb. I actually watch where I'm going
at 5-20km/h. And I can stop within a meter or two if I need to.
Also AC fans are making noise. It can be heard well enough.
It's just the reverse problem. A third of all accidents in the world happen when vehicle is moving in reverse.
But less than 1% of all travelling happens in reverse. So we should do something about that
For the drama, I'd be happy to enable forward moving noise once in a while.

 

[scaesare]

My preferred sound candidate:

 

[Dr. J]

Bikes dont have a big pedstrian-friendly crumple zone. Instead, they have handlebars etc. which concentrate the force of an impact on a very small area.

18mph is enough for a bike to kill.

OK, it happens, but not nearly as often as being hit by a car.

Jason Wakeford, director of campaigns for road safety charity Brake, said: "The rise in the numbers of pedestrians killed or injured by cyclists is concerning but the fact remains that vehicles are responsible for 99 per cent of road user fatalities.

The number of pedestrians fatally or seriously injured in collisions with cyclists has doubled since 2006 (from the UK to match your anecdotal evidence)

I also think you overestimate the utility of a car's crumple zone to a pedestrian. However I agree that getting hit with handlebars would really suck.

 

[WannabeOwner]

vehicles are responsible for 99 per cent of road user fatalities

I wonder if there are any statistics for whether the percentage hit by AEB and non-AEB vehicles, compared to the ratio of AEB fitted to the whole road-using fleet, suggests that that is going to make an improvement as the whole fleet increasingly has AEB as standard?

Are fully autonomous cars going to hit fewer pedestrians I wonder?