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Nissan Gives Electric Cars Blade Runner Audio Effect
mateuscb writes "A campaign backed by automakers and some lawmakers to make electric or hybrid cars noisier in a bid to increase safety for pedestrians and cyclists has taken a strange, Blade Runner-type twist. Nissan sound engineers have announced that the Leaf electric car set for release next year will emit a 'beautiful and futuristic' noise similar to the sound of flying cars — or 'spinners' — that buzz around 2019 Los Angeles in Ridley Scott's dystopian thriller based on a Philip K. Dick science fiction novel."
...one of the nice things about electric cars is that they're so quiet. Can you turn the sound off?
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
Do electric sheep make noise as well in 2019?
They should make some kind of noise that sounds significantly different when its coming towards you compared with going away from you, just like how an ambulance or police siren is.
I assume road noise is not enough. People are very good at tuning out noise. I hardly hear the truck reversing sound any more. Same with car alarms. Wonder how they will get around that.
It's too bad they won't live. But then again, what does.
Just put a card in the spokes. Yea, it's nerdy, but so is the car.
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20090918/NISSAN_EV6.jpg
I would want that sound that the USS Enterprise makes as it whizzes through space...
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
I want my car to sound like the flying cars from The Jetsons. Then I can at least pretend that I got the future I was promised as a child.
In response, Mazda has announced that their cars will play an endless loop of a 6 year old saying "zoom-zoom!"
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
From the article ~ "Some reports suggest that in the future, car owners will download a sound for their car the way many consumers buy ring tones for their cellphones."
Oh crap, now we have to listen to cars playing crappy tunes on bad speakers all the time. Can't their be a law against this proposed. I think a few dead pedestrians is worth the loss of the noise pollution.
I suggest something more like the Jetsons' car.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Yay! Pretty soon we'll be able to buy ringtones for our cars! Now kids won't have to go deaf turning their music up loud enough that everyone around can hear it. The Hip-hop ring tones will play on an outside speaker! Hooray.
Sean
Great...
What's next? A ringtone for your car?
My roommate can reproduce the sound George Jetson's little car makes. But he hasn't put it on You Tube.
Steve
Fifty years of Yippie! 1968-2018
So they killed the electric car. Or rather, they will, if they're as dumb as they seem.
What exactly would these people do on a daily basis?
And the spinners go WOOOOOO WOOOOOOOO
http://youtube.com/watch?v=YK18wQA-tHs
Tap into your stereo, problem of silly noises solved.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Funny world we live in. Car noise became so ubiquitous, we "need" them.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
An example of the sound is apparently this one. Not sure tho', found on an another site.
...I like the cars, the cars that go BOOM!!
xoviquom, ogdeuns
They actually bother to look, unlike many pedestrians who listen for traffic. Cyclists have to brake sharp or take evasive action to avoid these clowns.
they make that electric noise and if it's a sony run a way before the battery blows up.
We're Americans, dammit. Electric Cars, making no noise, are dainty and prissy. Carbonalicious Cars that go Vrooom-Vroooom, these are the cars that Real Men drive.
I'm saying it in a snarky way (it's my curse), but you know that is what the auto-marketers are thinking. Safety? Oh, please...!
Please not ringtone cars. Please please please. It's ten years into the future and I can't stand it already.
Will code a sig generator for food
But one of the nice things about electric cars is that they're so quiet. Can you turn the sound off?
If it can't be turned off, then I, for one, won't be buying one. Modern life is noisy enough as it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick
Just make massive subwoofers and reggaeton mandatory, problem solved.
No sig today...
they need a smell, to reflect their new potential. The smell should be 'silent but deadly'
If we didn't expect cars to make noise in the first place then this wouldn't be necessary. Besides, all the electric vehicles I've ever seen make noise anyway - sometimes enough to be annoying.
That's almost indistinguishable from the sound that the doors make when they open.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
'ringtones' for cars ? Oh, the horror...
When the cars, or, rather, horseless carriages were first introduced, didn't some locales require them to be preceded by a person carrying a bell — to warn the public of the monstrosity's approach?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It would be drowned out by the hip hop, or whatever is playing on those absurdly large subwoofers.
Why don't the pedestrians just carry boom boxes?
Does it mean I'll get more Arabic music for free under my window in Frankfurt?
Will this result in a new market where you can D/L different sounds for your car? Gives rice car a new meaning. Drive downtown late friday night with a honda that sounds like a Murcielago 660 and see people look for the Ghost Car.
I think i like this idea. I think the most popular sound will be "fart".
HTTP/1.1 400
...why a fart noise when you could play the Brown Noise?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It would be drowned out by the hip hop, or whatever is playing on those absurdly large subwoofers.
You make it sound as if there was a difference...
(There is supposed to be a Sarcmark® here, but my $1.99 check hasn't cleared, yet...)
At least 75% of the pedestrians don't look *either* way.
The mouth breathers are of the belief that 8 oz of striping paint will stop 3 tons of Detroit steel.
Get off my road, you crazy vegans!
I love this. Sure, it's gonna be annoying, but as long as folks that buy Harley's can replace the proper muffler with something chrome and flatulent, I don't see why the rest of us can't have the sounds we want.
How about a Ferrari sound for yer hybrid?
This is gonna get totally out of hand. I can't wait for the mayhem!
I want it to make the barney rubble "Flintstones" bongo running noise and vary with ground speed.
random cartoon noises other selectable ones could be fun like the fake orgasm from that meg Ryan restaurant
scene wear Rob Rayner's mom says I'll have what shes having. i just remember the scene not the movie.
TFA links to the National Federation for the Blind's article about this topic. Here's the most relevant snippet: >> While there are no national data on pedestrian injuries or deaths related to low-noise cars... Ok - guys: get some data! This is just plain ridiculous to pass a law based on a mere assumption that quiet cars might cause a problem. If someone can prove that this is a plague upon the nation - great; pass the law. But otherwise this is a fake problem. I've owned a civic hybrid and a prius. Neither were really noticeably quieter (even when the prius was operating electric only) than your typical accord / camry. Does anyone have any data at all anywhere showing the increased incident rate for quiet cars? I'd love to see it, but I'm pretty sure it's not there.
I created this account just so I could comment on this story
The economy will collapse totally, and we'll all be riding horseback.
I'm investing in saddles. Who's with me?
Am I the only person who would, without hesitation, load up a TIE Fighter sample?
...wouldn't it be awesome if we had an "open car platform" that would let you put whatever the heck you wanted in there? I understand that opening the whole platform might have safety and/or legal issues; but I can dream.
Besides, people already put illegal chips in their cars to override the emissions and get more HP.
Arguing that the whole car system should be closed only hurts law abiding people who'd like to put their own noise in there, or change the fonts on their computerized dash display.
That, and once you've opened the door to letting people direct tons of metal at high velocity, any other mod they make is relatively unimportant as far as safety is concerned. Of course, that kind of logic never works when it comes to legal stuff so... sigh... we're pretty much left with the stock noise and/or voiding our warranties, risking hefty fines, or a trip to Gitmo because we violated the Digitial Millenium Car Act.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The Crazy Frog ringtone.
That will sure scare the pedestrians away!
This would be my cartone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIpof-p7h8Q
They smell like flying cars, they sound like flying cars, they look like flying cars, they probably even taste like flying cars, but they CANNOT give us a . . .damned . . . FLYING . . . CAR !?
Table-ized A.I.
Or maybe "Dueling Banjos". So many ways to make people really want to get out of your way...
...every civic I see around here has an aftermarket fartcan installed, along with some graphic of an anime ninja guy with a katana, and a set of ailerons off of an old MIG.
...a nanny government in the movie Blade Runner.
What is better than those ice cream trucks!
Everyone loves them, and when you hear them you become alert and look around.
Pedestrian crossing accidents will plummet!
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Now I haven't patented this idea, but I'm giving it free to the world as prior art. Rather than making a constant noise, causing noise pollution and irritating residents, my invention enables the person driving to cause the vehicle to emit a noise when there is a road user or pedestrian that is in potential danger. Taking my inspiration from boats, that use a 'horn' to warn oncoming traffic, we could use a miniature horn that makes a loud sound as a warning. It would be placed somewhere easily accessible to the driver, for example on or near the steering wheel. What do you think?
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Yeah, so we've finally managed to make cars sound like Blade Runner... Good job! So I guess the hard work is done... all there's left is to make them fly.
I want a real flying car
Just because it sounds the same doesn't make it the same
I want one.
Crap. What did the new CSS do with the "Post anonymously" option??
I'd have to rig it to play Ride of the Valkyries, that'd make people get out of the way.
Blazing Spiders
Why not make cars transmit a signal that can be picked up by nearby personal receivers for blind people? It'd eliminate noise pollution and everyone else could just look.
That's the key to success. Pay $350 and make it sound like a Light Cycle.
I speak England very best
Oh gawd, I can just hear the 16yr olds with their "Crazy Frog" sounding cars now.....arggh
Pedestrians could just cross the street at crosswalks when it's indicated that it's safe. You know, utilize the safety precautions we already have in place instead of mandating that cars make noise.
My car already has a device installed to warn pedestrians when it is unsafe to cross. It goes beep beep when I push on the middle of my steering wheel (actually mine shorts out my electrical system, but you know what I'm getting at).
The audio effect only kicks in below 12 MPH, when the motor and tire noise is too quiet to be heard otherwise. Or were you proposing a siren connected to a breathalyzer?
I want my car to sound like the Jetson's vehicles. I'll be one of the first to buy the mod kit.
I want my car to sound like K.I.T.T. or better yet, a cylon.
I reject your reality
They already make noise ... its called the HORN!
Why on earth would we want to add noise? We don't add noise to bicycles to protect the cars from them. I get really miffed when the bicyclists decide its okay to blow through red lights and stop signs because they think they are exempt. Do what your parents told you long ago. Stop ... look both ways... and THEN cross the street. Stop and the stop signs and don't go through the red lights.
Why does everything have to be noisy?
When the light rail was first installed in san jose, they had the same problem - too quiet. So they installed a recording of a bell -ding ding ding ding that rang as long as the trian was going slow enough.
I wonder if Nissan has thought this conning plan all the way through....?
It's a bit like making a device to attach smells to email: I'm sure the designers would be thinking of people sending rose-scented love letters on Valentine's day and wonderful new recipes with apple and cinnamon ... but out in the real world people would mostly use it to send their first fart of the morning with the 'contrast' setting cranked up to 11.
No sig today...
I'll just have it emit whatever's playing on my stereo.
ASCAP or another major performance rights organization would bust a CAP in your AS for that. The music on your stereo probably isn't licensed for an intentional public performance.
We could have electric hearses playing Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. Please. Make it so!
Immolation is the sincerest form of flattery.
They may not be able to figure out how to put a fartcan muffler on it, but they'll darn sure figure out how to put a 2000 watt stereo in it. No problem hearing that coming down the road. Another benefit, is that with the neon and the stereo and the DVD and all the other crap in there, the batteries won't last long enough for it to run into you.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
A few years back I was in bar in Amsterdam and the topic of soundlessness in electric cars came up. I, for one, was happy about it having lived in cities with the sound of street noise my whole life and not liking it much. Then I quickly realized that it only would be a matter of time before people came up with the idea to create custom sounds for their cars. My happiness soon faded. Hopefully the legal system in this instance will act to stop this kind of pollution.
Except in the case of the blind a soundless car shouldn't be an issue; one of the first things I remember being taught as a child was to look both ways before crossing the street...
wow, watching scifi movies i always wondered why would future cars make such noises...now it makes sense!
...thought of the startup sound for the Ghostbuster's Proton Pack?
[End Of Line]
We can do this now. Just reverse all your car speakers so they play outwords, and beat the trend. It would be cool to buy high quality tube driven synths and beatboxes for your car so your friends could actually produce the music while you drove. By all the wooshing and humming lameness.
I would have thought I always look before stepping on the road, but the truth is that on a quiet road people often look over their shoulder _after_ stepping on the road.
I notice this when cycling. Especially of the footpath is narrow or crowded, and traffic is thin and slow. You learn not to ride too close to the kerb, and use your bell because people frequently step onto the road before looking properly.
Sure they look before crossing the middle, but there seems to be an unconscious assumption that if they hear nothing, then nothing is close.
And if you have ever been to a city where heavy electric scooters are common (Asia), you'll know what a menace they can be on the footpaths!
I don't think any of this applies at highway speed though. Nobody steps onto a 60m/100kph road without a damned good look.
Bicyclists depend on audible cues from traffic. Please keep the sound on. Sometimes you can hear a stupid driver and take defensive action immediately.
Silent death is a bad thing.
So you're sitting in traffic... and all you can hear is a thousand cars making a thousand "personalized" sounds (only $29.99 each, available on iTunes!) all around you.
Fantastic.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Like ringtones.
I mean, if Nissan dosn't catch a clue about this, it'll be hacked anyway.
Have gnu, will travel.
If the car itself makes an annoying noise, can anyone image how awful the car alarm is gonna be?
... one of those "Idaho Stop" bicycles being dragged under the frame of an SUV.
Have gnu, will travel.
That depends where you live. In Egypt, we drive at night with the lights out.
Your eyes aren't everything - I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm much faster to react to something I hear over something I see.
I live in a fairly large city in the northeast US. I walk a lot, but not like true urban walking - it's a mile and a half to the train station, and I walk it twice a day outside of light groceries and the like. I grew up walking in NYC and its suburbs, and I've been lucky enough to never actually need a driver's license. My feet do me just fine for most things.
So believe me when I say that the idea of a truly silent car terrifies me. I look both ways when I cross the street, I don't habitually jaywalk, I follow street signs and stay on the curb until the light changes, but if all that fails or if a driver isn't paying the same kind of attention I am to the road (he has a steel cage around him; I don't) I rely on my ears. I've had my ass saved on more than one occasion by hearing a car swinging around a corner towards me that I couldn't see yet.
There are a lot of stupid drivers on the road. There are also a lot of careless or over-confident pedestrians. But I can't see this as a bad thing - my eyes might keep me from walking out into the middle of traffic, but my ears are what get me to step back quickly onto the curb because somebody in a car isn't being careful.
Its amazing people wait till a corporation patents something that is obvious to make oneself and say this is the best thing since sliced bread.
As a citizen of Boulder, CO USA which has a high number of bicycles and silent hybrids including electrics - given the larger demographic area we have enough problems with bicycle/pedestrian accidents to spawn a cottage industry for lawyers.
Its a sign of autumn to see the leaves turn and have the newbie students move in. Its a time to remember to slam the breaks on bicyclists who whiz by "silently" on the left/right/behind/infront often at dusk without reflectors, wearing dark clothing and without reflectors.
My point is If we can't get noise makers on bicycles I don't see it to happen on electric vehicles. Basic safety systems are needed on Bicycles but are missing despite their higher rate of probability have a serious accident with pedestrians. Ever seen someone whose cheek got "hooked" on a handbrake when they were runover? It was like the seen in the Dark Night - Why so Serious Son?
Why not a $4 squirrel cage fan thats LOUD and is attached to main or the aux systems?
Why not a playing card in the spokes or a bell?
Why the needless reinvention?
LOL
As someone who lives in Nepal, and drives a motorbike in India, the things drivers shed to pedestrians is not wanted. Like the habit of backing up and running you over again if hit, to avoid paying the family of the squashed pedestrian any compensation. Please tell drivers in the Bihar that this is not acceptable, and the practice should be stopped immediately.
As far as ringtones for my next electric vehicle (my first was a Chinese motorbike), I will install the Tata Truck ringtone , which sounds like any other on the road. It's the one noise that instills fear in all creatures near the highway. Sounding like a cylon raider will do nothing to keep peds safe here.
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
He brade wrunner!
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
so, will Ridley Scott get a cut from every car sold that uses his "cruise" tone?
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Electric cars should have the noise of cars.
I want Bill Cosby's gocart sounds.
"I've... driven things you people wouldn't believe. Set Priuses on fire off the corner of Orion Street. I watched Smart cars sputter in the dark near the Tenhauser Tunnel. All those... models will be lost in time, like... tears in the rain."
Wouldn't using sound effects from 'The Jetsons' better simulate "a 'beautiful and futuristic' noise similar to the sound of flying cars"?
Then how are we supposed to sneak up on pedestrians in the future?
i say it's time for mandatory in car techno and drum'n'bass output levels
I'd rather have the sound of a screaming elephant.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSEEXBhsQds#t=0m19s
Pedestrians must have a sense of responsibility. All road users should do. As a cyclist, I can tell you I am very passionate in my belief that car drivers also should have a sense of responsibility and alas a small minority do not, and drive like idiots (this is also true of cyclists).
If a person weighing 150lbs* bumps into me, I am happy enough to accept a spoken apology. Drivers of a ton of steel must take much more responsibility for their action as their mistakes KILL. I can tell you that a minority do not. When I lived in London I'd expect one near miss a week (as in possible hospitalisation) cycling to work and back in the city centre. Drivers turning without indicating and forcing me to hit the brakes/jump onto the pavement and possibly endanger pedestrians, drivers opening their car doors into the traffic a couple of metres ahead of me without checking for traffic, parked cars pulling out without checking their mirrors. Nearly been hit by them all.
You are very right, people should behave responsibly on the road, and those people driving larger vehicles definitely must be extra careful.
* As an aside my friend, lighten up and love yourself a bit more. "150 fleshbag" - what a terrible expression! Human bodies are fine engineering and beautiful things. Love yourself a little more. Get out and do some walking, cycle, rock climb, enjoy that body! It's what you've got to live in so love it, enjoy it, use it to the limit, don't despite it :-)
The sound should be as un-musical and as noiselike as possible. White noise and impulses are much easier to localize. It is almost impossible to identify the direction from which a narrowband signal is coming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdmPouNLTlU
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
What about the side of the road when there is no footpath?
The vehicle code says you walk on the shoulder facing traffic if there is no foot path/sidewalk. Vehicles don't sneak up on you quite so much when they are not coming from behind you...
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Try being blind and then guessing when it's safe to cross the road...
I've read the articles where the blind people are freaked out by hybrid cars that they can't hear (when the car pulls away from a stop, for example). We can all understand why we want blind people to know there is a moving vehicle near them.
The thing is, simple economics dictates that it would make far more sense to equip the blind people with car proximity sensors of some kind, rather than make every car noisy.
There are far fewer blind people than cars. We can reasonably assume that in the future there will be many more hybrid or electric cars which produce little to no sound at low speeds.
Imagine the benefit of having areas free from engine noise - why artificially make every car noisy just for the safety of a very small portion of the population who can't see them?
It'd be easy enough to equip every car with something that produces ultrasonic sound or low power radio waves, and give blind people a device they can wear that will detect the car proximity signal and indicate to the blind person (perhaps by vibration) where nearby cars are.
Putting moderation advice in your
Why do you assume there is someplace to walk besides the road? In today's "car" world many small towns (i.e. population 10k) do not even bother building sidewalks, or the ones they have are 80 years old and unsafe (nothing wheeled like bicycles or wagons can traverse the offset cracks).
In one nearby community seeing wheelchairs, baby strollers, and kids walking on a five lane 45mph road is not unusual, as the local politicians didn't bother spending the money for sidewalks when they expanded. Our town just ripped out some aging sidewalks and put grass back, leaving only the road to walk on, stating they did not have the funds to replace them. Most of the local kids (including mine) still walk to school here, so they have no choice except to walk on the streets. Not everyone lives in a walkable community like New York.
According to the article:
Nissan says its system would turn off after the car reaches 12 mph, when, it says, tire noise is deemed loud enough to warn a pedestrian or cyclist that a car is approaching.
This is a good thing, IMO. I probably wouldn't want to hear that constant noise on a 4 hour road trip to anywhere.
I just hope they found a good way for the noise to turn on/off at the 12 mph mark. I expect it slowly fades in/out, rather than just being "on" or "off". I'd hate to keep having that noise start and stop on me as my speed hovered around 12 mph.
no one's suggested K.I.T.T.'s sound effect?
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
At what point will the futuristic noise become retro-futuristic?
The silence is one of the best features of electric and hybrid cars. Why is New York the city that never sleeps? Because it's so damn loud from all the cars.
This is just natural selection at work...People who are blind aren't well adapted for an environment filled with quite electric motor equipped trucks.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Would it be in poor taste to use a recording of someone being hit by a car?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
You seem to be missing the point of the basic social contract in a free society. You are allowed to do anything you want, provided it does not infringe upon anther's rights to life, liberty, and a pursuit of hot chicks. Operating a motor vehicle is a privilege you are granted, but the implicit understanding is that you will operate it in such a manner that you don't put other people at risk. Your statement
It's not my job as a driver to keep idiots safe.
is incorrect. It is exactly your responsability to keep other people safe when you exercise your right to operate a motor vehicle. If I were to take a gun into a public place and start shooting at random, it wouldn't even begin to fly with a judge if I tried to claim that I had the right to fire wildly about, and it was other people's responsibility to not get shot.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I'm going to see a car blaring a 10 second clip of Soulja Boy on repeat as it's sound
http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/noise/noise_maincontent.html
http://www.gov.hk/en/residents/environment/noise/trafficnoise.htm
"Those aren't your memories, they're somebody else's"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2TofIv30p8 ...I would love to have "The Jetsons Car" sound