What kind of sound does a LEAF make as it descends?
2010 Nissan Leaf EV - Click above for high-res image gallery
While advocates have long heralded a reduction in noise pollution (in addition to lowered air pollution) as an advantage of electric vehicles, not everyone is convinced that silent cars are a good thing.
We use our senses to navigate through life and when one or more of them are diminished, we rely on the others. Such is the case for blind people who must use their hearing to make up for some visual deficit (see archived posts on the topic here and here). Every automaker working on electrified vehicles is aware of this and researching what sorts of sounds those vehicles should make for safety reasons.
For instance, Nissan engineer Toshiyuki Tabata has spent his career making cars quieter, but is now working on the LEAF to have it create sound. No final decision has been made, but reports tell us that Nissan is currently leaning toward making the LEAF sound like the whining, flying cars in the film Blade Runner.
Gallery: 2010 Nissan Leaf EV
[Source: Bloomberg]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Sasparilla 1:16PM (9/18/2009)
An important detail left out here is that they are intending to use this sound only up to 12mph or so.
It'll be interesting to here what it is like.
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nrb 2:20PM (9/18/2009)
Thanks. That is important. At higher speeds, tire noise is greater than engine noise anyway.
However, I'm picturing stop-n-go traffic (below 12mph) with hundreds of cars making Blade Runner sounds.
jaguar879 9:59PM (9/18/2009)
This could be great for aftermarket low speed car sounds...
put me down for TIE fighter!
Ghen 1:30PM (9/18/2009)
Oh god I hope not. People can't hear my Yaris when I'm coasting out of gear and I haven't even come close to having someone walk out in front of it. This ever elusive directive to help the blind is completely baseless. There's NO studies that say quieter cars have more accidents due to their lack of noise.
Noise pollution is a horrible scar that I'd love to see go away in my every-day life. Any reduction towards that goal should be applauded, not FUD to death.
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Snowdog 1:53PM (9/18/2009)
Agree++.
You have to wonder if these people every walked outside and listened to approaching cars. Engines are near silent these days, you hear tire noise and wind noise first.
Doug 1:55PM (9/18/2009)
Poetic title, Sam.
These noise generators are a solution in search of a problem. All you need is a secondary "soft" horn to gently alert pedestrians in those parking lot situations. (Something akin to a bicycle bell.) The EV1 actually had this.
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Chris M 4:02PM (9/18/2009)
Your comment gave me an inspiration. Supposing they made the "horn button" pressure sensitive, so a light tap or gentle pressure would produce a gentle melodic tone, but hitting the button harder would produce a louder, more insistent honk.
Doug 6:35PM (9/18/2009)
That's a reasonable idea. The less obnoxious soft horn is really something that should be on all cars.
As I understand it, when you flicked the high beams on the EV1 there was an audible "bonk" (along with the flash). I think that's a good way to go about it. In fact anyone with some basic electronics skills could add this to existing cars.
mk3 1:56PM (9/18/2009)
Maybe there could be a standard radio or ultrasonic output that you could *optionally* pick up on a personal alarm system. Visual and hearing impaired persons and chronic daydreamers could purchase a device to give them an audible or ...some kind of clue.
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McHoffa 2:02PM (9/18/2009)
Maybe that's why the Jetsons had that funny noise on their flying cars...
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Yanquetino 2:03PM (9/18/2009)
Meh. You won't be able to hear the forest for the Leafs.
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wincros 2:23PM (9/18/2009)
"All you need is a secondary "soft" horn to gently alert pedestrians in those parking lot situations. "
I think that is a great idea. I would like to have one on my conventional car which is sometimes blocked by pedestrians walking down the middle of the lane in the parking lot.
I really don't think there is any danger of an unsighted person even without a guide dog stepping out in front any kind of car because of all the other noises a car makes at speed. At very low speeds when car noises are masked by ambient noise I can't imagine a driver being unable to avoid a pedestrian who makes a mistake.
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TrackZero 2:27PM (9/18/2009)
I find the pained wailing of sighted pedestrians I've just run down because they were crossing outside of a crosswalk while reading email and listening to music on their iPhones sufficiently notifies any nearby legitimately visually impaired individuals of my blatant refusal to yield to pedestrians.
This doesn't bode well for my invisible but very noisy hybrid. Am I going to be expected to hook up a flashing strobe light so the hearing impaired can see me trundling towards them?
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trackzero 2:30PM (9/18/2009)
I find the pained wailing of sighted pedestrians I've just run down because they were crossing outside of a crosswalk while reading email and listening to music on their iPhones sufficiently notifies any nearby legitimately visually impaired individuals of my blatant refusal to yield to pedestrians.
This doesn't bode well for my invisible but very noisy hybrid. Am I going to be expected to hook up a flashing strobe light so the hearing impaired can see me trundling towards them?
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Tom 2:30PM (9/18/2009)
I love it. When cars were first introduced there were communities that had laws requiring any automobile entering town to be preceded by someone on foot warning residents so they could control their horses because cars were considered too noisy.
Now people are whining because they aren't loud enough.
Absurd.
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Mark Kiernan 2:53PM (9/18/2009)
how about a soft beeping sound or something instead of an ICE? But I agree with the less than 12MPH above that should be nothing.
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mike 3:00PM (9/18/2009)
This is an insane solution.
Humans adapt.
It is our main super power... that and the thumbs.
I think there might be some initial spike in traffic/pedestrian accidents if a surge of electric cars hits the market.
Then I think that spike would subside as people adapted to the new world of quieter cars.
Blind people, it's true, have a special hardship here and learning to put their head on more of a swivel on the streets isn't going to help them.
But I think technology can provide better solutions than creating noise pollution for everyone, all the time.
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Yanquetino 3:11PM (9/18/2009)
Has anyone gathered some stats? Say, how many blind people have been run over by RAV4-EV, Tesla, eBox, and MINI-E owners to date?
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DasBoese 3:15PM (9/18/2009)
Yep. Decades worth of trying to combat noise pollution from automobiles and now this. Notice how this is mostly brought up by the safety nannies while actual blind people rarely express any fear or complain about this issue?
Because blind people are amazingly aware of their surroundings and subsequently very careful, unlike people listening to their ipods and talking or texting on their cellphones while crossing the street. Hell, I was almost run over once while doing it too, that got the point across quite well ;) I've witnessed blind people next to me at the bus stop notice bicycles (which, too, are rather silent) before I saw them.
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Randy S 3:28PM (9/18/2009)
Why don't they just tie pop cans to the back bumper...
or maybe
Drag an old muffler and tail pipe assembly for that old shit-box coming down the street type of sound.
What we really need is a horn for squirls, those erratic little buggers need way more help than any blind folk.
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