Hybrid cars may include fake vroom

[rickaren]

Hybrid cars may include fake vroom for safety

Posted Wednesday, Oct 14, 2009, 11:20 am in Employee News

For decades, automakers have been on a quest to make cars quieter: an auto that purrs, and glides almost silently in traffic, the New York Times reported.

They have finally succeeded. Plug-in hybrid and electric cars, it turns out, not only reduce air pollution, they cut noise pollution as well with their whisper-quiet motors, the paper said. But that has created a different problem. They aren’t noisy enough, the story said.

So safety experts, worried that hybrids pose a threat if pedestrians, children and others can’t hear them approaching, want automakers to supply some digitally enhanced vroom, the Times said. Indeed, just as cellphones have ring tones, “car tones” may not be far behind — an option for owners of electric vehicles to choose the sound their cars emit, the story said.

Working with Hollywood special-effects wizards, some hybrid auto companies have started tinkering in sound studios, rather than machine shops, to customize engine noises, according to the Times. The Fisker Karma, an $87,900 plug-in hybrid expected to go on sale next year, will emit a sound—pumped out of speakers in the bumpers—that the company founder, Henrik Fisker, describes as “a cross between a starship and a Formula One car,” the story said. (New York Times)