Electric vehicles are quiet. And that’s a problem
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, it’s Jeff once again for your semi-weekly dose of English. And you are listening to lesson number 498 of Plain English. This is the best way to upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. If you only listen on an app, then you’re just getting half the value. The rest of the lesson is at PlainEnglish.com/498.
Coming up on today’s lesson: what should an electric car sound like? Because right now, it doesn’t sound like anything, at least not at slow speeds. And for anyone who walks on a street, that can be a problem. On today’s lesson, you’ll learn what carmakers are doing to add noise to their electric vehicles.
In the second half of the lesson, I’ll explain what it means to “walk by” something. And we have a quote of the week.
JR and I are making the very final, last preparations for the big 500th-lesson celebration coming up this Saturday. This is going to be a worldwide party on Facebook and Instagram to celebrate 500 Plain English lessons, going all the way back to fall of 2017.
At the very, very beginning, just for the first couple of months, we did one lesson a week, on Thursdays. But for most of our history, we’ve made two Plain English lessons every week, without exception. And here we are almost at 500, and that is an accomplishment—not just for us, not just for me and JR, and for our whole team, but for all of you. Because all of you have done so much great work, you’ve made so much progress, and I just can’t wait to celebrate all the great work you’ve done.
So we are going to live stream the 500th lesson this Saturday, September 3 at 9:00 in the morning New York time, and when we are done with the lesson, we’ll have a champagne toast to celebrate all the great work you’ve done over the years. You can get all the details at PlainEnglish.com/500
So with that out of the way, let’s start today’s lesson.
What should an electric car sound like?
You probably don’t know the name Ed Peterson. He’s not a famous musician, but the sound he created would be recognized on any city street in the world. That’s because he invented the back-up alarm that big trucks use when they go in reverse.
In the 1960s, Ed sold automotive parts to operators of big trucks on construction sites. The story goes like this: on his frequent visits to dams, he noticed the trucks moving in reverse frequently hit—and killed—construction workers. So he invented an alarm that would sound automatically when the driver shifted into reverse. It wasn’t long before that alarm became one of the most recognizable sounds in the world.
Why am I telling you this now? Well today, the world faces a similar problem. Electric vehicles promise to improve safety and reduce harmful CO2 emissions. As you heard in Lesson 435 , they are also eerily quiet. And that’s a problem for pedestrians and cyclists.
When you walk on a city street, your eyes and ears protect you—up to a point. The next time you’re at a busy intersection, have a look at the people walking by . Count the number who are looking at a smartphone. See how many truly pay attention as they cross a busy street. Those of us—and yes, I include myself—those of us who look at our phones on the street, we’re handicapping ourselves. When we do that, we rely even more on our ears to alert us to danger.
Whether we’re distracted or not, the sound of an oncoming car warns us of the danger. If you’re walking on a street without a sidewalk, you can hear the car from behind. If you’re approaching an alley, you can hear a car moving into the street. If you’re about to cross, you can hear the cars on your left and right. You can also tell if a car is moving faster than normal, and you can get out of the way. This all protects us from dangers we cannot see.
But that’s not all. Even when we’re looking directly at an oncoming car, our ears help us out. The sound a car makes helps us determine how close it really is and, crucially, the sound also helps us calculate how fast the car is moving. Our brains process it subconsciously, but this information is all crucial to keeping us safe on busy streets. But if cars don’t make any sound, then we’re in trouble.
Since the early days of the automobile age, governments have told carmakers to configure their vehicles to make less noise. Now, they’re telling them to make more noise. The U.S., E.U., U.K., Japan, and China all now have regulations mandating that electric vehicles make noise with external speakers. The regulations only require noise at low speeds; in the U.S., cars must actively produce noise when they run at 30 kilometers per hour or less. At higher speeds, tire noise and wind displacement combine with other sounds to make enough noise, regulators say.
Interestingly, the rules don’t specify what noise the cars must make. The rules typically specify an acceptable range of frequency and decibel levels, but leave it up to the carmakers to determine the exact sound. The only rule is that all cars of the same make and model must produce the same sound. An individual driver can’t, for example, choose the sound his or her car makes. Just as every car model has a distinct look, in the electric age, every model will have a distinct sound.
This is leading to a whole new function in car making: the sound designer. At GM, for example, engineers are programming different sounds for different models. The Hummer, a big, muscular vehicle, will sound throaty; a Cadillac will sound more elegant. Audi, Ford, and Jaguar Land Rover are trying to make their electric cars sound like internal combustion cars. The electric Mustang, for example, will sound much like its gasoline-powered predecessor.
Other carmakers are doing it differently. Renault, the French carmaker, worked with an Italian composer to create a set of sounds that would mimic nature, but also be recognizable. The composer, Andrea Cera, said he wanted to create a sound that could be “present without being loud.”
Hans Zimmer is a German composer for film; he worked on this summer’s hit movie, “Top Gun: Maverick.” He’s also worked on the D.C. Comics superhero movies, artistic movies, and “The Lion King.” But now he’ll have a new credit to his name, as he’s working with BMW on the sound for the i4 sedan.
What will this sound like?
Is it really a good idea for every carmaker to create its own noise for every model car? And will the noises be different in different countries? If that’s true, then a city street might sound like the world’s biggest orchestra, with every instrument playing out of tune.
Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. They can do a lot with speakers and sound design these days. I hope the carmakers create sounds that can alert people nearby without being too distracting and noisy to people farther away.
What should an electric car sound like? One engineer said this was like making the movie “Jurassic Park.” They had to make sounds for dinosaurs. But nobody alive today knows what the dinosaurs really sounded like. Nobody knows what an electric car should sound like because they don’t make any noise. We’ll have to see what they come up with .
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