Mike
Member
I almost hit a guy in a parking lot today. Not because I wasn’t paying attention, but because he simply didn’t hear me. I was creeping forward, no sudden moves, nothing aggressive and suddenly he was right in front of my car.
That’s one of the strange side effects of driving an EV. Inside, the silence is amazing. Outside, it can feel like you’re invisible.
For decades, people relied on engine noise as a basic warning system. You didn’t have to look up you could hear a car coming. Now an electric car can move through a parking lot or a residential street almost silently. Meanwhile people are on their phones, wearing headphones, or just not expecting a two-ton vehicle to be approaching them.
Manufacturers know this, which is why they added pedestrian warning sounds. But most of them are either too quiet or sound like a UFO from a sci-fi movie. They don’t trigger that instinctive “car coming” reaction.
The real question isn’t whether EVs should make noise, but what kind of noise they should make. It doesn’t have to be loud. It just has to be recognizable. Something the brain instantly reads as “vehicle,” not background hum.
Silence is one of the best things about electric cars. But in crowded, distracted cities, total silence isn’t always a virtue. Sometimes safety matters more than elegance.
That’s one of the strange side effects of driving an EV. Inside, the silence is amazing. Outside, it can feel like you’re invisible.
For decades, people relied on engine noise as a basic warning system. You didn’t have to look up you could hear a car coming. Now an electric car can move through a parking lot or a residential street almost silently. Meanwhile people are on their phones, wearing headphones, or just not expecting a two-ton vehicle to be approaching them.
Manufacturers know this, which is why they added pedestrian warning sounds. But most of them are either too quiet or sound like a UFO from a sci-fi movie. They don’t trigger that instinctive “car coming” reaction.
The real question isn’t whether EVs should make noise, but what kind of noise they should make. It doesn’t have to be loud. It just has to be recognizable. Something the brain instantly reads as “vehicle,” not background hum.
Silence is one of the best things about electric cars. But in crowded, distracted cities, total silence isn’t always a virtue. Sometimes safety matters more than elegance.