Sound Generation
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The idea of adding noise-makers to vehicles that are "too quiet" didn't exist until the first hybrid-electric cars hit the market in 2000. Within a few years, however, organizations representing the blind began to raise alarms that cars operating at low speeds solely on electric power couldn't be heard by pedestrians who also couldn't see them. What followed was almost a decade of slow investigation, proposals, directives, and rule-making. DON'T MISS: 'Quiet Car' Rules To Make Hybrids, Electric Cars Noisy Delayed, Again (Dec 2015) On Monday, the Department of Transportation's NHTSA finalized...
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Pedestrian-Alert Noises For Electric, Hybrid Cars Delayed By NHTSA, AgainA rule requiring pedestrian-alert noises for electric cars and hybrids is delayed until 2018.
Stephen Edelstein -
Hyundai Sonata Hybrid Delay: Deciding To Make It Make Noise, Always
Hyundai is no friend to cheating spouses, that's for sure. Of course, neither is Congress (despite the recent Craigslist antics of former Representative Chris Lee). But perhaps we should start at the beginning. 'Vast defect' ?!?!? We've gotten several notes over the past few weeks from Colorado...
John Voelcker -
Sounds For Silent EVs, More Data, Same Result: Not Needed?
When we wrote about the debate over whether silent electric vehicles should have noise legislated into them, we obviously hit a nerve. Now EV enthusiast Mark Larsen has added further data to his original analysis of 1994-2008 traffic death figures from the Fatality Reporting System maintained by...
John Voelcker -
Sounds For Silent EVs: Solving a Problem That May Not Exist
It's a wonderful TV news flash: Blind people in peril from killer electric cars! News at 11. The fear is that electric vehicles are so silent that blind people can't hear them coming, so new draft safety regulations may now require electric vehicles to emit sounds. There's just one problem...
John Voelcker
