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Can electric cars sound good?
I recently test drove an EV, and while I was impressed with the car, I found it too quiet. Am I the only person who will miss engine noise? Can electric cars sound good?
Alex Healey · Updated on
Reviewed by Shannon Martin, Licensed Insurance Agent.
I promise you’re not the only one thinking about this. For all their technological advances, and their potential to help build a more sustainable future, the gentle hum of an EV doesn’t elicit the same tingly feelings as the growl of a fine-tuned internal combustion engine.
City-dwellers might consider quiet cars a blessing, but most drivers have been conditioned to expect an auditory response when stepping on the pedal. Accelerating in an EV is disconcertingly quiet.
Automakers are aware of the issue, and while it is fairly simple to ensure the car makes a noise using internal and external speakers, they now have a decision to make. What should an electric car sound like?
There are three main schools of thought here:
- The first is that EVs should replicate the sounds of gas cars. It’s the sound we are all accustomed to, and we don’t have to fix what isn’t broken.
- Some carmakers want EVs to sound more futuristic, more representative of the clean technology that powers them.
- Others have taken a more musical approach. BMW’s i4 electric-sedan concept, for example, uses an orchestral tone that gets lower as the car speeds up.
Of course, in the future, sound engineers and carmakers might go in a completely different direction.
Perhaps drivers will be able to record their own engine noises or choose one from a series of preset options. Others may embrace the silence.
Either way, it sounds like you are in the first camp. You want your electric car to sound like a gas car, and many people have the same opinion.
Rest assured that carmakers will be working hard to win you over, especially as EV marketing efforts turn away from early adopters, and try to break into the mainstream.
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