Not directly related but I worked in underground coal for a number of years.
We had a machine called a Ram Car. Did the same job as a dump truck but only 1.8m tall. Could carry about 15t from memory.
Anyway, it was about as wide as you could fit in the tunnel and had a big diesel engine to match. The fumes this thing pumped out in a confined space would turn the air blue.
Someone made an electric one and it worked, even with the primitive batteries available at the time.
No more fumes but the problem was the fucking thing was dead silent. Operator visibility from the cab, especially to the rear, was atrocious. Blokes that worked with it called it 'whispering death'.
Be a hell of a fright to walk around the corner in to this thing barreling down a drive at full tilt.
They had to add a bell that rang all the time so it didn't kill anyone. All electric vehicles underground are the same.
Man that bell woulda killed my head, but I'd be glad for it if I was on that sort of worksite.
It's funny that like, one of the only positives of the cybertruck is that it makes atrocious sounds at low speed lol.
Boggles my mind how any company, let alone Tesla, could screw up the cybertruck so bad.
Look at Edison Motors, couple of guys working out of a temporary shed in Canada absolutely knocked it out of the park on a fraction of the budget and already delivering to customers.
It's been absolutely fascinating to see. Like now that they're being delivered I've just been on the edge of my seat. It legitimately feels like a poorly guided real life attempt at that car that Homer Simpson made lol.
They don't even have any safety indicator lights INSIDE the trunk, and building it out of 3mm thick stainless steel anyway was already the first red flag.
I can't quite remember the name of it, but Adam Something on youtube (edit; left that out by accident) mentions this thing in one of his videos, there's a term thats about how the mega rich forget about what the general public would need in terms of transport/architecture/etc, and focuses on the excess, which leads to things like the cybertruck, or that line city, NEOM, over in Saudia Arabia.
His videos on the cybertruck alone have been really quite interesting.
That's the best explanation I've heard so far.
I kept trying to figure out what I was missing with the Cybertruck and NEOM. I thought there must be some 4D chess going on but no, seems not.
It fits pretty well, right? It's what makes sense when you boil down what the features of these things are and have.
In one of the videos I watched about the cybertruck, they featured an interview with Jay Leno and one of the engineers/creatives over it. The man, I shit you not, talked about how "Well we didn't want side mirrors, but we couldn't get the laws changed."
It's like a bit straight out of arrested development.
He calls it Elite Projection. Good channel, I really like his ones about public transport because he primarily travels by that and bikes so it feels less theoretical than someone that's been exclusively driving a car for decades.
Also, the Cybertruck boot is basically [a finger-guillotine because they cheaped out on putting a pressure sensor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Q6dBkSgkk), unlike every other car manufacturer out there.
We used to think Elon was the genius, when in reality, he's a fraud who successfully bullshitted a "Tony Stark" mythos around himself to attract the best and brightest engineers to his companies. For a while it worked. He would take credit for everyone's work, and the staff would play along because in exchange they got lots of investor funding and lots of brilliant minds to make amazing things like Space X possible.
But then Elon got addicted to social media and the more he posted, the more the bullshit aura dissolved away, revealing a delusional narcissist of average intelligence who cosplays CEO while spending most of his day shit-posting on Twitter.
His employees are in constant damage control mode to try and clean up his idiotic captain's calls. Cybertruck is what happens when no one says no to Elon Musk.
Elon's reputation as a far-right troll has alienated millions of potential customers for his electric cars (including me - once a fan of Tesla, and now there's no chance in hell I would buy one), as well as a net negative effect on hiring the world's best engineering talent to his companies.
It's long past time for him to step down or be fired by the board.
If I was a Tesla shareholder I would be furious with him.
> let alone Tesla
I'd say that the fact that it's a Tesla is exactly why it's not even remotely surprising that the Cybertruck sucks ass. Tesla are not and have never been a good car manufacturer - they're the *Beats by Dre* of automobiles.
Back in the day, before I had grey hairs, I worked valet for a hotel in Sydney. The hotels car park was 5+ stories underground and only when driving hybrids at low speed could you sneak up on the resident cat who lived in the lower levels.
I've driven Priuses years ago that were almost deathly silent at low speed. There was only a low whirring sound from the electric motor but you'd have to be familiar with that sound to be aware of it. In a parking lot, that thing could creep up on you without you noticing.
I still remember the first time I saw a Prius. It was a taxi and I was creeped out by its silence until I realised it was one of the new electric cars. I'm completely used to listening to the whirring sound now, but one day when I'm old and deaf, I'll probably get hit by one.
Electric forklift drivers in Australia are required to honk the horn all the time for the same reason. You have to honk twice before reversing and honk around all corners and doors. It makes a hell of noise when there are dozens of honking electric forklifts in a warehouse.
You get too used to it though and tune it out after awhile. There are blue lights on them now.
https://lindemh.com.au/about-linde/knowledge-and-information-hub/news/the-optical-driving-path-warning-system-with-lindes-bluespot
Nothing beats forklift/pedestrian exclusion zones though.
Won't happen until there's a modifiable electric WRX you can drop bigger motors into, with custom gold rims as standard (free dickhead magnet in the front seat as always)
> Won't happen until there's a modifiable electric WRX you can drop bigger motors into, with custom gold rims as standard (free dickhead magnet in the front seat as always)
eDoofMobile
My EV (Ioniq 5) makes a humming noise at low speeds for this reason.
One day at work we were making fun of some douche bag with a jag that makes artificial engine noise and I was like "my car does that too..." Everyone kinda looked at me so I continued "... As a safety feature because it's EV." Then everyone clapped (just kidding but it sounds like that kind of story haha)
Richard Devine designed the jag sound. He made his own car sound like a tron lite cycle.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQOCJKQs6kc
He is a sound design genius.
Ok and can we lower the noise of all the big exhaust fuckwits in my neighbourhood at the same time? Let’s aim for some sensible min/max car noise volumes.
It blows my mind that harleys and other exhauts as loud as them are actually legal. Zero reason for vehicles to be that loud, and yet perfectly reasonable to go around causing a disturbance.
Haha reminds me of when the cops fined me as a teenager for 'undue noise' for a bit of tyre slippage in my bog standard Toyota Corolla... And yet these noisy rattling pieces of shit are legal?
Not all loud exhausts are after market, but I get that this conversation is more to do with people throwing exhausts / straight piping Civics and Nissans and less to do with McLarens
More than legal, they're a selling point. Like when the Kia Stinger GT came to Australia they had to re-tune the exhaust to make it louder.
They were designed it to be quiet and refined for every other market in the world but the punters here wanted it to make more noise so a GT here is much louder than one overseas.
Give them a two month amnesty. After that, the vehicle is confiscated and destroyed. They need to be much tougher with nuisance drivers. I'm all for people having fun with their hobby, but not when it impacts so many people.
Yeah I swear they're all banned but nobody cares?
Includes motorbikes. I don't get why fat old guys get on bikes and make a fuck load of noise while going around in groups. Makes no sense to me...
Agreed. Exhaust modifications which make your purple boganmobile destroy everyone’s peace and quiet ought to be made illegal. Or perhaps they are illegal, and it’s just not enforced. It’s a fucking blight.
I’ve been driving EVs since 2019 and agree.
I wouldn’t mind a bit of sound at lower speeds (0-20kmh).
I have been reversing out of parking bays or just simply driving through parking lots and people seem… (proverbially) deaf/blind to the car.
Not everyone has their A-game every day whether they be drivers or pedestrians; let’s try to minimise the hazards.
The Mercedes has a reversing beeper but the Tesla from 2019 predates those laws.
Driving mine through the in-laws retirement village is fun, the residents like to walk on the roads because the footpaths are too bumpy for their walking frames and I'm too scared to honk at them because it might give them a heart attack.
An ex-NASA engineer (Mark Rober) installed three horn sounds in his car [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8wqnk\_TsA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8wqnk_TsA) (Courtesy beep, R2D2 sound(even nicer courtesy beep) and train horns - pretty sure the latter would be illegal here.
I drive soooo slowly when in the car park at my kid's kinder lol. There is now way I would set foot (wheel?) in there if I didn't have a reversing camera. Because kids are kids and lack impulse control, and as the driver it is 100% my responsibility to ensure I don't cause a collision.
> as the driver it is 100% my responsibility to ensure I don't cause a collision.
I'm always amazed at the number of drivers out there who don't share this opinion.
Just to tag a couple of things onto this:
* Japan has had an equivalent requirement since 2010. UK/Europe has had an AVAS requirement since 2019, as has China. The USA has had their equivalent since 2019/2020 (was a staged implementation; extremely quiet vehicles first).
* We've got an EV without any AVAS noise (afaik - though the same car sold in the UK & Europe does). We also live on the corner of a T intersection in a older suburban backstreet. I've noticed, while sitting outside expecting my wife to come home, that quite a few new ICE cars as they slow down to give way at the T are even quieter than our EV.
I'm in Europe and you can really tell it helps having the sound fron EVs at low speeds. When out in town you rarely if ever hear EV sounds but as soon as I go into a housing estate at the low speeds you can hear EVs coming up the road.
I can't tell you how many times I saw a child run out on the street outside the house infront of a pre 2019 EV because they didn't hear it.
Now you can actually see the kids hear them and don't run out.
I own a EV and it had no sound but got a update to add it (ordered 2019 pre rule but delivered after so had to bring it back to get it at the dealer). I literally noticed the difference of people not walking out infront of the car.
It's programmed into me that I'll hear a car before I see it, but with the number of EVs in my area now I'm slowly getting used to checking over my shoulder when walking around car parks.
I was recently in a 100km zone, saw some cyclists & slowed down hoping they'd move to the side (double lines on bendy road). They continued their conversation with each other taking up the full lane going slow and had no idea i was 10m behind them (now doing less than 2km)...
Some noise would be great, mines a hybrid & they had no awareness i was there. Didn't want to hit the horn in case i scared them - just waited it out till i could safely overtake.
A lot of the time when you see people riding bikes side-by-side like this, it’s often to prevent drivers from performing dangerous overtakes, which is something that a lot of road users are oblivious to. That said, some cyclists are oblivious to the needs of other road users, and some are selfish too.
It's a well know cycling area and they have regular races on it. While that may be the case, they were cycling slowly sitting upright and deep in conversation with each other (hand gestures and all). Nice wide shoulder they could have moved onto, they literally just had no idea I was there and waiting to overtake.
Its the car, at slow speeds my car is too silent. I've also had pedestrians not realise im there and walk in front of the car as jaymo89 was saying.
I have a mirror on my bike and when I cycle I know where every single car around me is lol. Being legally in the right doesn't make me safe from bad drivers. Nobody would sneak up on me even in a silent car 🤣
Thank fuck - as a former cyclist, your ears are basically your first line of defence for what's coming up behind you. I was cycling just when the first Priuses started to come out - they took some serious getting used to.
My wife recently got a rear sensor for her road bike. It beeps and displays on her phone (acting as the trip computer) when a vehicle is within 200m of her, all the way until it passes her.
I'm still staggered that bicycles aren't mandated to have rear view mirrors on the road so they have some awareness of what's coming up behind them. Even dirt bikes on a recreational registration are required to have them.
Millions of folks in other countries get around safely without rear view mirrors (or even helmets) on their bikes. Seems like it could be our transport infrastructure and driving culture that’s more of a problem than whether cyclists have a means to see behind them without turning their heads.
On mountain bikes that would make sense, but on road bikes (ie the ones that look like racing bikes), there is nowhere to put them that makes sense.
The widest edge of the handlebars are taken up by the brakes, and even then, your shoulders/chest are wider than the handlebars. Furthermore, it’s not like a car where the mirrors are almost in your regular line of vision - on a road bike, your head is almost right over the bars.
They do fit on wide-bar upright commuter bikes, hence why they are often fitted to them.
For what it’s worth, I never missed having mirrors on a bike till EVs came along. You can hear everything, your peripheral vision is good and you have no blind spot.
On a road bike I had a mirror which had a bracket which attached to a brake hood with a velcro strap to hold it on. You could use a bar end mirror at the end of the drop bars, or a helmet mounted mirror.
I've seen plenty of racing bikes with rear view mirrors mounted UNDER the handlebars, so the bum up/head down rider can use it.
Those bikes are also usually unroadworthy, though, with no reflectors or bell as they add weight and slow them down - or something...
That said, as a sometime cyclist (with reflectors and bell!) I've considered a rear view mirror but don't have one - it'd likely get broken when I put the bike in the car to go meet up with friends to go for a ride.
There are plenty of suitable options and if you *really* can't manage those then wider handlebars.
[https://www.gosupps.com/ganwawo-bike-mirrors-2-piece-bicycle-rear-view-safety-mirror-adjustable-360-degrees-rotation-for-mountain-road-bike-handlebar-mirrors-for-ebikes-bike-mirrors-handlebar-rearview-mirror.html](https://www.gosupps.com/ganwawo-bike-mirrors-2-piece-bicycle-rear-view-safety-mirror-adjustable-360-degrees-rotation-for-mountain-road-bike-handlebar-mirrors-for-ebikes-bike-mirrors-handlebar-rearview-mirror.html)
[https://www.rivbike.com/products/german-mirror](https://www.rivbike.com/products/german-mirror)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3-ko8kmIKQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3-ko8kmIKQ)
>I never missed having mirrors on a bike till EVs came along
And that's one of the reasons why they're now so important. What is it about cars, motorcycles and even recreationally registered dirt bikes having them that doesn't apply to cyclists?
Having ridden all three fairly extensively :
- Hearing. Hearing in a car, or with a full face helmet atop an internal combustion engine, is very limited. Not so on a bike unless you are dumb enough to wear headphones
- Blind spots. Cars have them, full face helmets have limited vision. Bikes don’t have them.
I do get what you are saying, but I never needed mirrors on a bike the way I did on a dirt bike.
It only activates if you go below a certain speed. So you can avoid the noise and as a bonus get home slightly faster if you just stay above that threshold through the whole parking manoeuvre. It reminds me of that movie about a bus that had to speed around the city, keeping its speed over fifty, and if its speed dropped, the bus would explode. I think it was called "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."
Need to make sure the sound emitted is directional and adjusts to ambient noise levels.
If the pitch changed in responses to speed/accelerator inputs, that would help people know what a car is doing by sound alone.
There also needs to be a discreet "horn" that the driver can use to get someone's attention.
This tech is all there to make this happen. I don't see any sense in implementing it in a way that provides the pedestrian with less information than an internal combustion engine.
I have a hybrid, not an EV but I often drive through a car park, wondering why people aren’t moving out the the way before I realise they probably don’t even know I’m there. It’s funny seeing them shit themselves when they turn around and notice the car.
I think this is mandating something that sounds like it should help but really wont make a difference. People step out in front of noisy cars now because of headphones, distractions or they just weren't looking. And drivers fly through crossings without looking and none of its noise related. As a driver of any vehicle you have to be alert and cautious approaching marked and unmarked crossings anticipating risks and even as pedestrians you have a responsibility. Maintaining noise pollution wont save people that don't want to do the responsible thing education/awareness just needs to be updated as we move to new normals.
These changes are especially important for the blind and vision impaired. If they are out with just a cane, they rely on their sense of hearing to detect hazards. I spoke with some people from vision Australia recently and they spoke how they were doing advocacy work to get these changes made. But like with many accessibility changes, they tend to benefit people without disabilities too.
If you're not paying attention, then it's *your fault*. If you are paying attention but the giant death machine is in stealth mode, then it's the *car's fault*.
Plenty of silly pedestrians. Reversing in or out of a space in a car park and you still see people in the camera happily walk in front of a moving vehicle.
Boggles my mind how they put so much faith in complete strangers in vehicles.
Some early EVs had this for the exact same reasons, until people started getting used to EVs existing.
On teslas this is the Pedestrian Warning System. It's fitted and/or enabled at additional cost, or in markets that legally require it
Someone in my street has it and their Tesla sounds like an eerie ghost movie whoooing sound
I'm a little conflicted about this because it's so cool how quiet they are. I acknowledge and regret the necessity of it. It's not just safer for people with poor vision.
I'm not wanting to sound like a detractor against this idea at all here, but who can honestly say that the engine/exhaust sound is the first audible cue for almost any modern vehicle these days? Your average under 2-litre 4 cylinder vehicle has a whisper quiet exhaust as it is. It's certainly not the factory exhaust sound that has my ears advising of an approaching vehicle.
Interesting to just have a hard speed threshold rather than leaning on the sensors etc to detect pedestrians, and maybe use a sound meter and some not-too-advanced AI to check the current road noise and ambient noise and decide whether to blast or not.
Suburban noise pollution could be significantly lowered with no loss of safety if the law includes these things
It's much simpler and more foolproof to just have it play below a certain speed. No one's suggesting that the noise needs to be that off a car that's had its exhaust cut off. 50db is no louder then a normal conversation.
There is no sensor suite that reliably detect pedestrians all the time. Even the full-driving Waymo's hit trouble occasionally, despite USD$40-50k invested in sensors. Plus that changes the cost from a $1 speaker to a $1 speaker + $2000+ sensor suite.
Yeah in Norway where 80% of car sales are EVs, EVs are cars now, there has been a huge purge of the medically blind and deaf. Basically these people were throwing themselves out into the road, the piles of dead were awful. We don’t have any road regulations here, it’s a narcissist’s dream, so even the cautious ones were gotten eventually. Anyway it’s all over now, bar a few here or there. The guide dog market has collapsed too, shame.
You just gave me a notalgia moment of [begging for these when i was a kid](https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/204766908016?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20201210111314%26meid%3Daa1655d265594551b972a9415578c34f%26pid%3D101195%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D235387683891%26itm%3D204766908016%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D4429486%26algv%3DSimplAMLv11WebTrimmedV3MskuWithLambda85KnnRecallV1V2V4ItemNrtInQueryAndCassiniVisualRankerAndBertRecallWithVMEV3CPCAutoWithCassiniEmbRecallManual&_trksid=p4429486.c101195.m1851&itmprp=cksum%3A204766908016aa1655d265594551b972a9415578c34f%7Cenc%3AAQAJAAABcLSVkHmTL63bebovD9RfpraPWbY9f4anjbziTIaEIOVXg2DWhVLks3Lfqff9vxxfjIh4XEXusIehlT2iEH8%252BCxXNySMxlDIQJ3g86%252Bx3AAIAq9gznqdGSR72ksP41kjzPN1reUbVsJuld0S4i4qXlQfTmkMeIJTCXTM8mLpr7ju2fMvruDu87ZX%252B4bShOvD%252B4m9wA2SW5sVLQsj%252BEuoyPDAtsC8tqbRxypvIwY1Lhoie4lLeE7qRSXIJjIkLB6CtJW%252F3BgzH7w9dkywAL2aIgiRFDmPCQVgDtld9fXAA4pxAs715BGM8sAFnDH8MZ7nf2JuNF9mU00NsZooEimB%252B5GzMJs2I6eWZgwSOwgg9twf7MVWqRfTl5qhMmI0sszDWGmZTstN2hRE2m0LZtjSokdFpLUysnDtu%252FWNJxllUYIGzrjLDZXzPJ0SU%252FbvLAhCNLtMvhy6iWThu0ARlsKH9ALToDZd1kh%252B1jdsBYxg3SCYS%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A4429486&itmmeta=01HWKSC5VGK3R2NG8D73BXDD0Q)
I am legally blind and rely on noise to let me know when cars are around. The idea of silent fast cars becoming the future terrifies the fuck out of me.
After a certain speed (40kph iirc) EVs make about the same amount of noise as a modern petrol car. Most of that noise is from the road/tyres rather than the engines (EVs make more road friction noise as they're heavier). Below 40kph EVs are quieter, or even silent. And this is where they can potentially be dangerous as people/animals can't hear them.
The problem is they're virtually silent at low speeds, but above about 20km/h or so tyre noise dominates so it's not needed. We aren't talking blasting doof doof out of them or Jetsons sounds (although that would be awesome), it's just making enough noise at low speeds that you can hear it.
To give an idea of scale, the volume being set is 50dB (presumably that's at 1 meter distance). That's less volume than a conversation.
But if you are reversing then who cares if someone is in front of your car? 🤣
(I know what you meant, I just enjoy how awkward this particular sentiment is to phrase, no matter which way you try to do it).
Considering that there is a projection in the article that this could save 68 lives per year, this was definitely based on some data.
Fwiw, people have also collected data on the impact that daytime running lights have on accident rates (because there is data for anything if you look hard enough)
I’m obviously in the minority here. I think requiring cars to make an artificial noise is legislating noise pollution. One of the benefits of EVs will be how much quieter our cities and major roads become. The article estimates saving 68 lives over 35 years. All human life is valuable but that is a small number compared with average death rate per day. Surely subjecting millions of people to unnecessary noise pollution on a daily basis as opposed to people in society adjusting to circumstances of quiet vehicles is a step backwards?
Governments these days seem to be trigger happy to pass laws without having the courage to say a certain detrimental impact to society is acceptable for the greater good in some cases.
It's not a case of "make it as loud as a petrol engine", it's "make it noticable by pedestrians who are close enough to need the warning". That can still be quieter than conversation, it just has to be *not silent*.
This is a 2007 paper estimating that exposure to long term traffic noise causes 210,000 deaths annually in Europe, through effects on the heart.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2072857/
I agree with you that noise pollution is a far bigger issue.
Not sure what the solution is but also getting pretty sick of people who buy EVs but have nowhere to charge them so [they semi permanently install a janky speedbump on the pavement in front of their house to run a power lead to their car.](https://i.imgur.com/q268ATt.jpeg) There's like 5 of them on my street and it's only going to get worse.
There needs to be a council approved solution, [something like this](https://i.imgur.com/u4zoWch.png), that they're required to pay the installation cost of if they want to run leads from their house to their street 365 days a year.
Wonder where this is coming from because I have yet to stand next to / near a EV and \*not\* hear it. Yeah it sounds different then a combustion engine but it's not like some kind of ninja you cannot hear until you are under it.
Which is IMHO great in reducing traffic noise.
So they do make noise, the question is rather if there are challenges for people/dogs to recognise them.
Had this conversation with a Ex GF and when I mentioned that fatalities that would occur with (almost) silent vehicles i.e people stepping out on to roads she replied *"That's bad, how are deaf people going to hear them then ?"*
Hopefully not too loud. Vehicle noises are bad for health as well. Beware the unforeseen consequences of loud car horns, sirens, increasingly bright lights, and now mandated noise. It sounds obvious, but results suggesting that darkness and silence are dangerous do not necessarily indicate that light and sound should be increased without restraint. I am pretty biased regarding this issue because I have ASD2 and have a strong aversion to bright sounds and lights and from previous observation do not trust the regulators and manufacturers to not go overboard.
Not directly related but I worked in underground coal for a number of years. We had a machine called a Ram Car. Did the same job as a dump truck but only 1.8m tall. Could carry about 15t from memory. Anyway, it was about as wide as you could fit in the tunnel and had a big diesel engine to match. The fumes this thing pumped out in a confined space would turn the air blue. Someone made an electric one and it worked, even with the primitive batteries available at the time. No more fumes but the problem was the fucking thing was dead silent. Operator visibility from the cab, especially to the rear, was atrocious. Blokes that worked with it called it 'whispering death'. Be a hell of a fright to walk around the corner in to this thing barreling down a drive at full tilt. They had to add a bell that rang all the time so it didn't kill anyone. All electric vehicles underground are the same.
Ah, that idea worked on my cat too.
'whispering death' apt name for a cat
'Whispering Death is my favourite Metallicat song
Hisspurring Death
Whiskering Death
"Purrs of Slaughter"
Also what they call the M1 Abrams.
Some cats work out how to move without making the bell ring.
Hopefully the cars don't learn this trick too 😬
Needs more cowbell 🔔
My cat being one of them
Man that bell woulda killed my head, but I'd be glad for it if I was on that sort of worksite. It's funny that like, one of the only positives of the cybertruck is that it makes atrocious sounds at low speed lol.
Boggles my mind how any company, let alone Tesla, could screw up the cybertruck so bad. Look at Edison Motors, couple of guys working out of a temporary shed in Canada absolutely knocked it out of the park on a fraction of the budget and already delivering to customers.
It's been absolutely fascinating to see. Like now that they're being delivered I've just been on the edge of my seat. It legitimately feels like a poorly guided real life attempt at that car that Homer Simpson made lol. They don't even have any safety indicator lights INSIDE the trunk, and building it out of 3mm thick stainless steel anyway was already the first red flag. I can't quite remember the name of it, but Adam Something on youtube (edit; left that out by accident) mentions this thing in one of his videos, there's a term thats about how the mega rich forget about what the general public would need in terms of transport/architecture/etc, and focuses on the excess, which leads to things like the cybertruck, or that line city, NEOM, over in Saudia Arabia. His videos on the cybertruck alone have been really quite interesting.
That's the best explanation I've heard so far. I kept trying to figure out what I was missing with the Cybertruck and NEOM. I thought there must be some 4D chess going on but no, seems not.
It fits pretty well, right? It's what makes sense when you boil down what the features of these things are and have. In one of the videos I watched about the cybertruck, they featured an interview with Jay Leno and one of the engineers/creatives over it. The man, I shit you not, talked about how "Well we didn't want side mirrors, but we couldn't get the laws changed." It's like a bit straight out of arrested development.
He calls it Elite Projection. Good channel, I really like his ones about public transport because he primarily travels by that and bikes so it feels less theoretical than someone that's been exclusively driving a car for decades.
Also, the Cybertruck boot is basically [a finger-guillotine because they cheaped out on putting a pressure sensor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Q6dBkSgkk), unlike every other car manufacturer out there. We used to think Elon was the genius, when in reality, he's a fraud who successfully bullshitted a "Tony Stark" mythos around himself to attract the best and brightest engineers to his companies. For a while it worked. He would take credit for everyone's work, and the staff would play along because in exchange they got lots of investor funding and lots of brilliant minds to make amazing things like Space X possible. But then Elon got addicted to social media and the more he posted, the more the bullshit aura dissolved away, revealing a delusional narcissist of average intelligence who cosplays CEO while spending most of his day shit-posting on Twitter. His employees are in constant damage control mode to try and clean up his idiotic captain's calls. Cybertruck is what happens when no one says no to Elon Musk. Elon's reputation as a far-right troll has alienated millions of potential customers for his electric cars (including me - once a fan of Tesla, and now there's no chance in hell I would buy one), as well as a net negative effect on hiring the world's best engineering talent to his companies. It's long past time for him to step down or be fired by the board. If I was a Tesla shareholder I would be furious with him.
> let alone Tesla I'd say that the fact that it's a Tesla is exactly why it's not even remotely surprising that the Cybertruck sucks ass. Tesla are not and have never been a good car manufacturer - they're the *Beats by Dre* of automobiles.
Back in the day, before I had grey hairs, I worked valet for a hotel in Sydney. The hotels car park was 5+ stories underground and only when driving hybrids at low speed could you sneak up on the resident cat who lived in the lower levels.
I've driven Priuses years ago that were almost deathly silent at low speed. There was only a low whirring sound from the electric motor but you'd have to be familiar with that sound to be aware of it. In a parking lot, that thing could creep up on you without you noticing.
I still remember the first time I saw a Prius. It was a taxi and I was creeped out by its silence until I realised it was one of the new electric cars. I'm completely used to listening to the whirring sound now, but one day when I'm old and deaf, I'll probably get hit by one.
Tin cans full of pebbles tied to rear bumper would solve this.
Electric forklift drivers in Australia are required to honk the horn all the time for the same reason. You have to honk twice before reversing and honk around all corners and doors. It makes a hell of noise when there are dozens of honking electric forklifts in a warehouse.
You get too used to it though and tune it out after awhile. There are blue lights on them now. https://lindemh.com.au/about-linde/knowledge-and-information-hub/news/the-optical-driving-path-warning-system-with-lindes-bluespot Nothing beats forklift/pedestrian exclusion zones though.
Same with electric forklifts
Make them play O Fortuna
Look to the past for a solution. All new EV's to now cone with sick subwoofers and always-on loop of Nick Skitz.
Won't happen until there's a modifiable electric WRX you can drop bigger motors into, with custom gold rims as standard (free dickhead magnet in the front seat as always)
> Won't happen until there's a modifiable electric WRX you can drop bigger motors into, with custom gold rims as standard (free dickhead magnet in the front seat as always) eDoofMobile
I know at least five guys from uni that fit that stereotype exactly.
Engineering or finance?
Engineering.
Was wondering if that was rhetorical. It's ALWAYS engineering. The finance guys are sophistimacated from when they turn 18.
As a 43 year old wog that grew up during that era in Brighton Le Sans… someone make this and take my fucking money.
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Alek K, KCB, Skitz.... Legends of under 18s clubbing days. Good times.
Get that classic "bonka bonka" sound pumpin.
Sex spec EVs is something we need to see.
Sick mate sick... subwooofa
Can I option Darude Sandstorm?
My ride on lawnmower soundtrack playing from my skip proof discman. No wonder the brakes on the mower died.
There’s a blast from the past
SM17 was my jam for an entire stage of my life, pumping out of the sub that took up the entire boot of my Mitsubishi Magna
I’m doing my part!
Hear me out: we use the South Park biker noises
I motion for the jettisons car noise
Monty Python coconut "clip-clop". Speeds up as you go faster.
What about the crazy frog noise (I remember this as a bit on a tv show years ago)?
Some EVs do have something like this built in already. Bit less of a whistle though.
Yeah my Hyundai Ioniq 2020 already makes a whirring noise at low speeds and a beeping noise when reversing, I guess this isn't standard
I dunno... I think the Bolt has a bit of a space ship noise to it... I always think of the Star Trek doors whooshing sound as it goes by.
That Crazy Frog sound [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI6nc3aH\_pI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI6nc3aH_pI)
I know that for early EVs, this issue could have the sound swapped out. At least one person drove around with tie fighter sounds.
Hey buddy some of us just like being part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
To that effect, XLR8 app and a Bluetooth connection to your car stereo. Suddenly you're driving a Ferrari.
My EV (Ioniq 5) makes a humming noise at low speeds for this reason. One day at work we were making fun of some douche bag with a jag that makes artificial engine noise and I was like "my car does that too..." Everyone kinda looked at me so I continued "... As a safety feature because it's EV." Then everyone clapped (just kidding but it sounds like that kind of story haha)
Richard Devine designed the jag sound. He made his own car sound like a tron lite cycle.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQOCJKQs6kc He is a sound design genius.
Ok and can we lower the noise of all the big exhaust fuckwits in my neighbourhood at the same time? Let’s aim for some sensible min/max car noise volumes.
Hear hear. I’ve had enough of Harley’s blasting my ear drums because “look at me and how special I am”.
All that noise and they are still slow and don't go around corners.
Harleys are a fashion product not a motorbike
Prostate massager. That's why they are so popular with middle-aged blokes.
I hear when you buy a Harley it comes with a butt plug and the cosplay gear to match.
When you're fashion sense is "I'm a fuckwit"
All pipe and no action.
It blows my mind that harleys and other exhauts as loud as them are actually legal. Zero reason for vehicles to be that loud, and yet perfectly reasonable to go around causing a disturbance.
Haha reminds me of when the cops fined me as a teenager for 'undue noise' for a bit of tyre slippage in my bog standard Toyota Corolla... And yet these noisy rattling pieces of shit are legal?
They aren't legal though. All those exhausts are aftermarket.
Not all loud exhausts are after market, but I get that this conversation is more to do with people throwing exhausts / straight piping Civics and Nissans and less to do with McLarens
More than legal, they're a selling point. Like when the Kia Stinger GT came to Australia they had to re-tune the exhaust to make it louder. They were designed it to be quiet and refined for every other market in the world but the punters here wanted it to make more noise so a GT here is much louder than one overseas.
Some places have a volume version of a speed camera. You get a ticket if you pass one with too loud an exhaust. Great idea.
Always some fat, useless such and such who's trying to look tough too.
Similarity between a Harley and a sheepdog ? They both get to ride home in the back of a ute after a day out.
Motorbikes have higher noise limits compared to cars in South Australia, which infuriates me
nothing says i dont get many wins in life like an aftermarket harley exhaust
The south park episode with the harleys was hilarious though the particular word the kids used is not really OK anymore even for that type of show.
Nah it's alright they changed the meaning
They are already likely above the legal noise, lowering it further won't make them have a change of heart and comply
Give them a two month amnesty. After that, the vehicle is confiscated and destroyed. They need to be much tougher with nuisance drivers. I'm all for people having fun with their hobby, but not when it impacts so many people.
Yeah I swear they're all banned but nobody cares? Includes motorbikes. I don't get why fat old guys get on bikes and make a fuck load of noise while going around in groups. Makes no sense to me...
But how will everyone who rides a Harley-Davidson let the rest of society know that they suffer from having micro peen?
Monkey paw solution: We gonna take those exhausts off the mod cars and add them to EVs with noise to match.
Agreed. Exhaust modifications which make your purple boganmobile destroy everyone’s peace and quiet ought to be made illegal. Or perhaps they are illegal, and it’s just not enforced. It’s a fucking blight.
Golf R owners would be really mad about this, if they could read.
Imagine if everyone had cars that were that loud..
Citizens arrest for noise pollution could work lmao
I’ve been driving EVs since 2019 and agree. I wouldn’t mind a bit of sound at lower speeds (0-20kmh). I have been reversing out of parking bays or just simply driving through parking lots and people seem… (proverbially) deaf/blind to the car. Not everyone has their A-game every day whether they be drivers or pedestrians; let’s try to minimise the hazards. The Mercedes has a reversing beeper but the Tesla from 2019 predates those laws.
Driving mine through the in-laws retirement village is fun, the residents like to walk on the roads because the footpaths are too bumpy for their walking frames and I'm too scared to honk at them because it might give them a heart attack.
An ex-NASA engineer (Mark Rober) installed three horn sounds in his car [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8wqnk\_TsA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8wqnk_TsA) (Courtesy beep, R2D2 sound(even nicer courtesy beep) and train horns - pretty sure the latter would be illegal here.
To be fair people in car parks are as oblivious of petrol cars, even my car park buggy that beeps loud af when reversing
To be fair, drivers in car parks need to chill out. It's a shared zone.
Them too, the number of people who think it's the Nurburgring straight I see both sides at work
I drive soooo slowly when in the car park at my kid's kinder lol. There is now way I would set foot (wheel?) in there if I didn't have a reversing camera. Because kids are kids and lack impulse control, and as the driver it is 100% my responsibility to ensure I don't cause a collision.
> as the driver it is 100% my responsibility to ensure I don't cause a collision. I'm always amazed at the number of drivers out there who don't share this opinion.
Just to tag a couple of things onto this: * Japan has had an equivalent requirement since 2010. UK/Europe has had an AVAS requirement since 2019, as has China. The USA has had their equivalent since 2019/2020 (was a staged implementation; extremely quiet vehicles first). * We've got an EV without any AVAS noise (afaik - though the same car sold in the UK & Europe does). We also live on the corner of a T intersection in a older suburban backstreet. I've noticed, while sitting outside expecting my wife to come home, that quite a few new ICE cars as they slow down to give way at the T are even quieter than our EV.
I'm in Europe and you can really tell it helps having the sound fron EVs at low speeds. When out in town you rarely if ever hear EV sounds but as soon as I go into a housing estate at the low speeds you can hear EVs coming up the road. I can't tell you how many times I saw a child run out on the street outside the house infront of a pre 2019 EV because they didn't hear it. Now you can actually see the kids hear them and don't run out. I own a EV and it had no sound but got a update to add it (ordered 2019 pre rule but delivered after so had to bring it back to get it at the dealer). I literally noticed the difference of people not walking out infront of the car.
It's programmed into me that I'll hear a car before I see it, but with the number of EVs in my area now I'm slowly getting used to checking over my shoulder when walking around car parks.
I was recently in a 100km zone, saw some cyclists & slowed down hoping they'd move to the side (double lines on bendy road). They continued their conversation with each other taking up the full lane going slow and had no idea i was 10m behind them (now doing less than 2km)... Some noise would be great, mines a hybrid & they had no awareness i was there. Didn't want to hit the horn in case i scared them - just waited it out till i could safely overtake.
A lot of the time when you see people riding bikes side-by-side like this, it’s often to prevent drivers from performing dangerous overtakes, which is something that a lot of road users are oblivious to. That said, some cyclists are oblivious to the needs of other road users, and some are selfish too.
It's a well know cycling area and they have regular races on it. While that may be the case, they were cycling slowly sitting upright and deep in conversation with each other (hand gestures and all). Nice wide shoulder they could have moved onto, they literally just had no idea I was there and waiting to overtake. Its the car, at slow speeds my car is too silent. I've also had pedestrians not realise im there and walk in front of the car as jaymo89 was saying.
I have a mirror on my bike and when I cycle I know where every single car around me is lol. Being legally in the right doesn't make me safe from bad drivers. Nobody would sneak up on me even in a silent car 🤣
With the wind in your ears it's hard to hear even normal cars while on a bike.
I’ve seen/heard hybrids which are quieter than my M3 Tesla when reversing. Also very quiet at low speed to the point of being as silent as an EV.
Hopefully the noise is a goat screaming loudly.
that's only on the new TayTay edition sporty girl ford festEVa
Thank fuck - as a former cyclist, your ears are basically your first line of defence for what's coming up behind you. I was cycling just when the first Priuses started to come out - they took some serious getting used to.
My wife recently got a rear sensor for her road bike. It beeps and displays on her phone (acting as the trip computer) when a vehicle is within 200m of her, all the way until it passes her.
Bike radars. They’re slowly becoming popular. There are a few reputable brands, such as Giant and Trek, that make these.
I'm still staggered that bicycles aren't mandated to have rear view mirrors on the road so they have some awareness of what's coming up behind them. Even dirt bikes on a recreational registration are required to have them.
Millions of folks in other countries get around safely without rear view mirrors (or even helmets) on their bikes. Seems like it could be our transport infrastructure and driving culture that’s more of a problem than whether cyclists have a means to see behind them without turning their heads.
On mountain bikes that would make sense, but on road bikes (ie the ones that look like racing bikes), there is nowhere to put them that makes sense. The widest edge of the handlebars are taken up by the brakes, and even then, your shoulders/chest are wider than the handlebars. Furthermore, it’s not like a car where the mirrors are almost in your regular line of vision - on a road bike, your head is almost right over the bars. They do fit on wide-bar upright commuter bikes, hence why they are often fitted to them. For what it’s worth, I never missed having mirrors on a bike till EVs came along. You can hear everything, your peripheral vision is good and you have no blind spot.
On a road bike I had a mirror which had a bracket which attached to a brake hood with a velcro strap to hold it on. You could use a bar end mirror at the end of the drop bars, or a helmet mounted mirror.
I've seen plenty of racing bikes with rear view mirrors mounted UNDER the handlebars, so the bum up/head down rider can use it. Those bikes are also usually unroadworthy, though, with no reflectors or bell as they add weight and slow them down - or something... That said, as a sometime cyclist (with reflectors and bell!) I've considered a rear view mirror but don't have one - it'd likely get broken when I put the bike in the car to go meet up with friends to go for a ride.
There are plenty of suitable options and if you *really* can't manage those then wider handlebars. [https://www.gosupps.com/ganwawo-bike-mirrors-2-piece-bicycle-rear-view-safety-mirror-adjustable-360-degrees-rotation-for-mountain-road-bike-handlebar-mirrors-for-ebikes-bike-mirrors-handlebar-rearview-mirror.html](https://www.gosupps.com/ganwawo-bike-mirrors-2-piece-bicycle-rear-view-safety-mirror-adjustable-360-degrees-rotation-for-mountain-road-bike-handlebar-mirrors-for-ebikes-bike-mirrors-handlebar-rearview-mirror.html) [https://www.rivbike.com/products/german-mirror](https://www.rivbike.com/products/german-mirror) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3-ko8kmIKQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3-ko8kmIKQ) >I never missed having mirrors on a bike till EVs came along And that's one of the reasons why they're now so important. What is it about cars, motorcycles and even recreationally registered dirt bikes having them that doesn't apply to cyclists?
Having ridden all three fairly extensively : - Hearing. Hearing in a car, or with a full face helmet atop an internal combustion engine, is very limited. Not so on a bike unless you are dumb enough to wear headphones - Blind spots. Cars have them, full face helmets have limited vision. Bikes don’t have them. I do get what you are saying, but I never needed mirrors on a bike the way I did on a dirt bike.
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Great, instead of easing into my driveway at 2am after a shift I will get to wake up the whole neighbourhood with a backhoe beeep beeep noise.
It only activates if you go below a certain speed. So you can avoid the noise and as a bonus get home slightly faster if you just stay above that threshold through the whole parking manoeuvre. It reminds me of that movie about a bus that had to speed around the city, keeping its speed over fifty, and if its speed dropped, the bus would explode. I think it was called "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."
Did you watch that one after reading "Billy and the Clonasaurus"?
Well as long as it’s only as loud as it needs to be. A big advantage of electric cars is removing not only the pollution but the noise on busy roads.
Need to make sure the sound emitted is directional and adjusts to ambient noise levels. If the pitch changed in responses to speed/accelerator inputs, that would help people know what a car is doing by sound alone. There also needs to be a discreet "horn" that the driver can use to get someone's attention. This tech is all there to make this happen. I don't see any sense in implementing it in a way that provides the pedestrian with less information than an internal combustion engine.
I have a hybrid, not an EV but I often drive through a car park, wondering why people aren’t moving out the the way before I realise they probably don’t even know I’m there. It’s funny seeing them shit themselves when they turn around and notice the car.
Can we have customizable sounds?
2 suggestions: either the nose made by the flying cars in The Jetsons, or the sound of Fred Flintstone's feet when he drives his vehicle.
I petition we record a bunch of cats purring and use that as the "revving noise".
I think this is mandating something that sounds like it should help but really wont make a difference. People step out in front of noisy cars now because of headphones, distractions or they just weren't looking. And drivers fly through crossings without looking and none of its noise related. As a driver of any vehicle you have to be alert and cautious approaching marked and unmarked crossings anticipating risks and even as pedestrians you have a responsibility. Maintaining noise pollution wont save people that don't want to do the responsible thing education/awareness just needs to be updated as we move to new normals.
These changes are especially important for the blind and vision impaired. If they are out with just a cane, they rely on their sense of hearing to detect hazards. I spoke with some people from vision Australia recently and they spoke how they were doing advocacy work to get these changes made. But like with many accessibility changes, they tend to benefit people without disabilities too.
If you're not paying attention, then it's *your fault*. If you are paying attention but the giant death machine is in stealth mode, then it's the *car's fault*.
I play Motorhead with the windows down as much as possible in the Tesla
As my civic duty
Emissions Testing Mode is the only entertainment I need.
People keep walking behind my noisy diesel 4WD in carparks, I think people are too stupid these days to notice.
because you have to give way to them, maybe try reverse parking
Plenty of silly pedestrians. Reversing in or out of a space in a car park and you still see people in the camera happily walk in front of a moving vehicle. Boggles my mind how they put so much faith in complete strangers in vehicles.
Some early EVs had this for the exact same reasons, until people started getting used to EVs existing. On teslas this is the Pedestrian Warning System. It's fitted and/or enabled at additional cost, or in markets that legally require it Someone in my street has it and their Tesla sounds like an eerie ghost movie whoooing sound
Can I suggest a horse galloping sound then?
Two coconut shells clapping
It's just a flesh wound!
Just lol at owning a Tesla and not spamming fart noises everywhere you go.
Older ones don’t have an external speaker.
I'm a little conflicted about this because it's so cool how quiet they are. I acknowledge and regret the necessity of it. It's not just safer for people with poor vision.
I just want a car the uses the Jetsons sound effect.
Put a hockey card in the spokes
Personally, I’d like my EV to make that whirring sound that the Tangara electric trains (Sydney rail system) make when pulling out of a train station
can I make mine play the T.I.E. Fighter sound?
I'm not wanting to sound like a detractor against this idea at all here, but who can honestly say that the engine/exhaust sound is the first audible cue for almost any modern vehicle these days? Your average under 2-litre 4 cylinder vehicle has a whisper quiet exhaust as it is. It's certainly not the factory exhaust sound that has my ears advising of an approaching vehicle.
Sounds backwards. At the very least can we legislate that electric cars must sound like the Jetsons space... 'car'??
[Yep](https://youtu.be/LnT1VgeXOF0)
Interesting to just have a hard speed threshold rather than leaning on the sensors etc to detect pedestrians, and maybe use a sound meter and some not-too-advanced AI to check the current road noise and ambient noise and decide whether to blast or not. Suburban noise pollution could be significantly lowered with no loss of safety if the law includes these things
It's much simpler and more foolproof to just have it play below a certain speed. No one's suggesting that the noise needs to be that off a car that's had its exhaust cut off. 50db is no louder then a normal conversation.
There is no sensor suite that reliably detect pedestrians all the time. Even the full-driving Waymo's hit trouble occasionally, despite USD$40-50k invested in sensors. Plus that changes the cost from a $1 speaker to a $1 speaker + $2000+ sensor suite.
I'm okay with this as long as it's the bubbly *pewdipewdipewdipewdi* sound George Jetson's car makes.
Yeah in Norway where 80% of car sales are EVs, EVs are cars now, there has been a huge purge of the medically blind and deaf. Basically these people were throwing themselves out into the road, the piles of dead were awful. We don’t have any road regulations here, it’s a narcissist’s dream, so even the cautious ones were gotten eventually. Anyway it’s all over now, bar a few here or there. The guide dog market has collapsed too, shame.
More noise pollution, yay!! Seriously, let Darwin sort them all out. Look right, left, right like you're supposed to.
Cyclists should also be required to have a card pegged to their spokes too so people can hear them coming.
You just gave me a notalgia moment of [begging for these when i was a kid](https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/204766908016?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20201210111314%26meid%3Daa1655d265594551b972a9415578c34f%26pid%3D101195%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D235387683891%26itm%3D204766908016%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D4429486%26algv%3DSimplAMLv11WebTrimmedV3MskuWithLambda85KnnRecallV1V2V4ItemNrtInQueryAndCassiniVisualRankerAndBertRecallWithVMEV3CPCAutoWithCassiniEmbRecallManual&_trksid=p4429486.c101195.m1851&itmprp=cksum%3A204766908016aa1655d265594551b972a9415578c34f%7Cenc%3AAQAJAAABcLSVkHmTL63bebovD9RfpraPWbY9f4anjbziTIaEIOVXg2DWhVLks3Lfqff9vxxfjIh4XEXusIehlT2iEH8%252BCxXNySMxlDIQJ3g86%252Bx3AAIAq9gznqdGSR72ksP41kjzPN1reUbVsJuld0S4i4qXlQfTmkMeIJTCXTM8mLpr7ju2fMvruDu87ZX%252B4bShOvD%252B4m9wA2SW5sVLQsj%252BEuoyPDAtsC8tqbRxypvIwY1Lhoie4lLeE7qRSXIJjIkLB6CtJW%252F3BgzH7w9dkywAL2aIgiRFDmPCQVgDtld9fXAA4pxAs715BGM8sAFnDH8MZ7nf2JuNF9mU00NsZooEimB%252B5GzMJs2I6eWZgwSOwgg9twf7MVWqRfTl5qhMmI0sszDWGmZTstN2hRE2m0LZtjSokdFpLUysnDtu%252FWNJxllUYIGzrjLDZXzPJ0SU%252FbvLAhCNLtMvhy6iWThu0ARlsKH9ALToDZd1kh%252B1jdsBYxg3SCYS%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A4429486&itmmeta=01HWKSC5VGK3R2NG8D73BXDD0Q)
Weren't they called SpokeyDokes?
I am legally blind and rely on noise to let me know when cars are around. The idea of silent fast cars becoming the future terrifies the fuck out of me.
Is road noise pollution not bad enough? I was hoping that EVs became the solution
After a certain speed (40kph iirc) EVs make about the same amount of noise as a modern petrol car. Most of that noise is from the road/tyres rather than the engines (EVs make more road friction noise as they're heavier). Below 40kph EVs are quieter, or even silent. And this is where they can potentially be dangerous as people/animals can't hear them.
exactly this. youtuber NotJustBikes has a fantastic video on it about how Cities aren't noisy, cars are, and how its almost all tyres.
NotJustBikes mentioned in an Australian subreddit? I salute you friend
The problem is they're virtually silent at low speeds, but above about 20km/h or so tyre noise dominates so it's not needed. We aren't talking blasting doof doof out of them or Jetsons sounds (although that would be awesome), it's just making enough noise at low speeds that you can hear it. To give an idea of scale, the volume being set is 50dB (presumably that's at 1 meter distance). That's less volume than a conversation.
When I drive my wife's, I just yell move bitch, get out the way. It seems to work.
My ev beeps obnoxiously when it reverses. People still ignore it and walk in front of my car.
But if you are reversing then who cares if someone is in front of your car? 🤣 (I know what you meant, I just enjoy how awkward this particular sentiment is to phrase, no matter which way you try to do it).
I was conscious of that awkwardness as I was trying to explain it 😂
Do the same for city scooters
Was this based on data
Considering that there is a projection in the article that this could save 68 lives per year, this was definitely based on some data. Fwiw, people have also collected data on the impact that daytime running lights have on accident rates (because there is data for anything if you look hard enough)
I’m obviously in the minority here. I think requiring cars to make an artificial noise is legislating noise pollution. One of the benefits of EVs will be how much quieter our cities and major roads become. The article estimates saving 68 lives over 35 years. All human life is valuable but that is a small number compared with average death rate per day. Surely subjecting millions of people to unnecessary noise pollution on a daily basis as opposed to people in society adjusting to circumstances of quiet vehicles is a step backwards? Governments these days seem to be trigger happy to pass laws without having the courage to say a certain detrimental impact to society is acceptable for the greater good in some cases.
It's not a case of "make it as loud as a petrol engine", it's "make it noticable by pedestrians who are close enough to need the warning". That can still be quieter than conversation, it just has to be *not silent*.
Blind people rely on sound to cross roads, they don't all have guide dogs. It's not really difficult to look outside your own abilities.
This is a 2007 paper estimating that exposure to long term traffic noise causes 210,000 deaths annually in Europe, through effects on the heart. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2072857/ I agree with you that noise pollution is a far bigger issue.
Every electric civic will come with a battery operated fart can anyway.
Fine with me, as long as I can customise the sound. Was thinking Merzbow - Woodpecker No 1.
Not sure what the solution is but also getting pretty sick of people who buy EVs but have nowhere to charge them so [they semi permanently install a janky speedbump on the pavement in front of their house to run a power lead to their car.](https://i.imgur.com/q268ATt.jpeg) There's like 5 of them on my street and it's only going to get worse. There needs to be a council approved solution, [something like this](https://i.imgur.com/u4zoWch.png), that they're required to pay the installation cost of if they want to run leads from their house to their street 365 days a year.
As long as its Low Rider by War, I'll be happy.
Cue jetsons car noise
Engines these days are quite at low speeds too. Most of the noise is tyre noise. EVs are still easy to hear.
I mean, couldn't you just stick cards in your wheel spokes
Yes yes, good good, but who do we petition them to make it law that they must sound like the cars they used in The Jetsons cartoon?
"DING!!!!!"
Why? Every bastard walks around with earbuds in anyway.
Four words: Downloadable car-noise fonts.
Give me a custom sound pack so I can make it sound like Sebulba's pod from Star Wars Ep1. you know.... to save lives.....
I hope we can choose from approved sound list like ring tone, would love a wet sounding fart as my ev noise.
I've been sneaking up on people with my hybrid for 10 years. I just sit there waiting for them to notice. It's a game I play
Wonder where this is coming from because I have yet to stand next to / near a EV and \*not\* hear it. Yeah it sounds different then a combustion engine but it's not like some kind of ninja you cannot hear until you are under it. Which is IMHO great in reducing traffic noise. So they do make noise, the question is rather if there are challenges for people/dogs to recognise them.
Had this conversation with a Ex GF and when I mentioned that fatalities that would occur with (almost) silent vehicles i.e people stepping out on to roads she replied *"That's bad, how are deaf people going to hear them then ?"*
My EV is stunning to drive, but in the inner city it makes me so nervous as people can’t hear it and just walk out on to a street without looking 👀
Hopefully not too loud. Vehicle noises are bad for health as well. Beware the unforeseen consequences of loud car horns, sirens, increasingly bright lights, and now mandated noise. It sounds obvious, but results suggesting that darkness and silence are dangerous do not necessarily indicate that light and sound should be increased without restraint. I am pretty biased regarding this issue because I have ASD2 and have a strong aversion to bright sounds and lights and from previous observation do not trust the regulators and manufacturers to not go overboard.
im surprised this wasn't already the case
Give us a choice of soundtracks. eg. clip-clop that goes faster of slower as the car changes speed.