Welcome to the Science Mondays segment! Each week here on Geek Alabama, Science Mondays will feature stuff from the world of science and science related content. Our goal here at Geek Alabama is to hopefully have you learn something useful and fulfilling. Science is a geek’s best friend, and we love featuring science content here at Geek Alabama.
The driving sounds of EVs, explained by the designers who make them.
For over a century, the internal combustion engine powered vehicles with an intricate combination of moving parts and tiny explosions. That combustion process inevitably made noise, and that noise came to define the background soundscape of our roads, cities, and day-to-day life. But as hybrids and EVs became increasingly mainstream — and more of their near-silent electric motors filled the streets — it became clear that silent vehicles didn’t fit in the ecosystem we’d built around cars.
Spearheaded by associations of the blind and visually impaired, legislation eventually began to require electric vehicles to emit an artificial engine noise out of hidden external speakers. These hidden speaker systems, called “Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems” — or AVAS — had to meet certain sonic criteria. But they were also a blank slate for sound designers to decide how the cars of the future should sound.
Categories: Science Talk Stuff
