Audi Gives Silent Electric Car Synthetic Sound

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 12, 2012 @08:39AM from the millions-to-be-made-in-downloadable-cartones dept.

itwbennett writes "Audi's electric cars are quiet, maybe too quiet, which is why Audi spent 3 years creating replicated engine noise for its electric car models. We're so conditioned to the noise of an engine revving that a driver behind the wheel of a too-quiet car may not realize how fast he's driving, and a pedestrian relying on auditory clues may be unaware of an approaching vehicle, says Ralf Kunkel, Head of Audi Acoustics." Nissan's been on this for years (as has Honda); one day, you may only get to choose which noise your car makes, rather than whether it does.

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To hell with noise pollution by doston · 2012-04-12 08:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

I live in downtown Seattle and sometimes the noise is a bit much. The worst are the hogs that are designed to be incredibly noisy. People need to WATCH where they're going (look both ways, morons) and LOOK at the speedometer. And no, I'm not moving to some suburb or the country. It's not a living nightmare or anything, but I hardly see any good reason, other than just supporting stupidity, to actually put work into creating noise.