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US Finalizes Rules That Require Quiet Hyrbid and Electric Cars To Make Noise At Low Speeds (reuters.com)
In an effort to prevent injuries among pedestrians, the U.S. government has finalized rules that require quiet hybrid and electric vehicles to emit alert sounds when they are traveling at low speeds. Reuters reports: The rules, which were required by Congress, will require automakers like Tesla Motors Inc, Nissan Motor Co and Toyota Motor Corp to add the sounds to all vehicles by September 2019. The U.S. Transportation Department said it expects the rules would prevent 2,400 injuries a year by 2020 and require the addition of alert sounds to about 530,000 2020 model vehicles. The U.S. National Highway Transportation Department said the rules will cost the auto industry about $39 million annually because automakers will need to add an external waterproof speaker to comply. But the benefits of the reduced injuries are estimated at $250 million to $320 million annually. NHTSA estimates the odds of a hybrid vehicle being involved in a pedestrian crash are 19 percent higher compared with a traditional gas-powered vehicle. About 125,000 pedestrians and bicyclists are injured annually. The rules will also help the blind and visually impaired. The rules apply to hybrid and electric cars, SUVs, trucks and buses weighing up to 10,000 pounds and seek to prevent crashes at intersections or when electric vehicles are backing up. At higher speeds, the alert is not required because other factors like tire and wind noise adequately warn pedestrians, NHTSA said.
In Trumpamerica, hybrids and electric cars will be replaced by God-fearing American coal burning cars!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Hissing or fake engine noise.
a la: General Lee (Dukes of Hazzard)
That will make those pedestrians get out of the way.
just move to china where death is cheaper then keeping some one alive for life and we can add there run over again code there as well.
Just put a playing card in the spokes.
A.I. having religion? What could possibly wrong?
Table-ized A.I.
Red Flag Laws
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Please oh please.
I've found it best to assume everyone else on the road is deaf. This goes double for bicycles and triple for pedestrians.
With the ubiquity of earbuds you just cannot expect that person you are coming up on to hear you. Add simulated engine noise won't change that unless we all end up with Harley noise levels. (and then we really will all be deaf)
"The U.S. National Highway Transportation Department said the rules will cost the auto industry about $39 million annually because automakers will need to add an external waterproof speaker to comply."
A $3 speaker and $1 of wiring per car will add up to $39 million? Too bad. Raise the cost of the car by $5 and stop whining.
No one puts off buying a car because it costs $32,535 instead of $32,530.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
that electic cars be forced to emit "realistic decibel-level revving Harley" sound.
Trump says "Everyone knows that Harley riders rev their jackhammer-sounding engines not because they are assholes, but because of the safety factor it gives them on the dangerous streets."
Congress is mulling the change, noting that the current sound required by the proposed legislation is a "liberal wailing and gnashing of teeth" sound.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
if some thing is coming behind you you would need some way tell. distance and time can be diserned by sound but also coupled with the sense of sight is helpfull though as the saying goes look both ways.
I can't be the only person who can already hear these things because of the whine that their motors put out at low speeds. It isn't loud, but neither is a relatively modern internal combustion powered passenger car at parking lot speed.
the rules will cost the auto industry about $39 million annually ... the benefits of the reduced injuries are estimated at $250 million to $320 million annually.
Why should car owners pay for this? They get no benefit. This should be paid for by a tax on shoes and bicycles!
(Only half joking)
Will it require a Buick to do the same? how about Honda Goldwings? the tires make more noise than the motorcycle does.
Only one way I will support it. force the electric car makers to have them all sound like the cars from the jetsons.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Car Sound Fonts!
I want Chitty Chitty Bang Bang along with Dick van Dyke singling for everyone as I drive.
Or a bubble popping noise!
Entrepreneurs! Make it happen. I command thee!
Since we want noisy cars, let's go all the way. All cars should be required to have speakers cranked to make 150 dB white noise at all times. Now, nobody can miss it.
I know. Force all new cars to have the blinding lights so we can all run each other off the road. Why stop there? Let's put them on the sides and back of the care too. And crank them up so high that even a blind person wearing a blindfold can feel the heat from the lights.
Oooh, here's another good idea. All cars will now have to send emergency alerts to every phone within 500 feet. Phones will need to be updated to allow for proper notification. Keep sending the notification, we need to make sure we don't miss any vehicles. And other drivers will know you're there too!
Seriously, this is retarded. One of the advantages of a hybrid or electric vehicle is less noise. Not no noise, the tires rolling on the road at low speeds are quite audible even among other cars. But an improvement. If you want to reduce injuries, you increase education for drivers AND pedestrians, and you publicly embarrass people who do stupid things. Let society mock them into obedience.
Just sell people tones. They can buy other vehicles' engine noises from the same automaker, or Jetsons(tm), Star Trek(tm), Star Wars(tm), etc etc
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Whatever happened to the notion of looking both ways before crossing the street? One of the benefits of hybrids and electric cars is they reduce noise pollution. The idea of adding artificial noise just so people are more "used" to how things operate is such an obvious step backwards. And what about existing electrical vehicles and hybrids? Do they need to be retrofitted? And who would have to pay for it?
All hail glorious ruler of orange hair!
Much noise, will stop after car destroyed in 5 mph crash!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Estimates"???? Wtf, are they trying to suggest this would be a good idea without even having any actual hard statistics backed by actual research to support the notion that it would actually result in fewer pedestrian injuries?
I mean, I'm not going to argue that it makes some kind of logical sense that cars that make noise would alert people to their presence more readily than silent ones, but after you factor in the number of pedestrians that are wearing earbuds or headphones, or too busy chatting on their phone to pay attention to what is around them, I honestly don't know if this kind of change would make any difference unless you make the electric cars *louder* than ICE vehicles.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Go low tech. A handful of pebbles in the hub caps will make enough noise to warm people. I ride a very quiet bicycle. When people are on a path in front of me they tend to have ear buds and are either chatting dribble on their cells phones or oblivious due to music blasting in their ears. Most car horns will not even get trough to them. Noise is easy to make. Drill a hole or to in the muffler if you must.
The trummp/brietbart administration insists the cars should not sound "gay". (As in the Vince Vaugh movie, this is a joke, or at least was a joke. Now it's probably a reality)
I have a leaf - it beeps when it backs up. Going forward, at 3 to 4 miles per hour, you can hear it - like you would hear any couple thousand lb object moving. Any increase in the number of pedestrian accidents is because people are now walking with their heads down looking at their phones.
There's no excuse for a pedestrian to be hit by a vehicle unless the vehicle is somewhere it shouldn't be - like a sidewalk.
Keep your head up, its dangerous out there.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Something like this
Have gnu, will travel.
At least Toyota already has this in their hybrid vehicles. And in Japan you have a toggle to temporarily turn it off (for when you arrive home late, for instance, and want to minimise noise). The "whine" you hear from a Prius or Aqua at low speed is actually the speaker; with it turned off they're almost completely silent.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
We loved that when I was liddle
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
My 2012 Leaf already beeps in reverse. There is an external speaker already installed. All it would take to make my Leaf comply is a software update.
Oddly, and this is true, the one time that they updated the software resulted in bricking the whole car. The solution was to unplug the batteries, wait a few seconds, and plug them in again.
"Did you try turning it off and on again?" - The IT Crowd
don't slow down.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
Modern Coasting gas powered vehicles, and bicycles which frequently are traveling as fast as the flow of traffic, makes little to no noise as well are we going to require them to have the same low speed noisemakers? If not then this is a bs rule.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
I hope some brave automaker has the balls to make their warning sound be a repeated playback of "Federal law requires this stupid warning."
I can imagine it now... Tie fighter noises all over the place.
I want mine to sound like Fred MacMurray's Model T in 'The Absent Minded Professor'.
My UK bought Nissan LEAF has a noise generator that operates at low speed. It creates a high pitched wine which alerts people that the car is near. Besides that, the A/C system fans also make a fair bit of noise. If I want to go into total stealth mode I can turn off the A/C and the noise generator and then creep around car parks startling the unwary. I generally just assume people can't hear even when driving my Mini so I don't think this is going to make a massive amount of difference other than for the blind who obviously use their hearing more so I can see the sense in this. Odd that it wasn't already required in the US.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
I hope they settle on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (Crazy Frog)
My 100% electric Fiat already makes a low whirring noise below 10MPH, you can not hear it inside the car with the windows up but people on the sidewalks hear it. Had one elderly man flag me down and told me my car was making a funny noise. Told him it was electric and that was a warning noise.
Screw engine simulated noises. I want my Prius to play Ride of the Valkyries really loud!
Fucking piece of shit government is constantly getting involved where it absolutely does not belong for any god-damn reason. The car manufacturers don't want to get sued, whether they decide to use noise or some other method of projecting the presence of the vehicle is up to them. Government getting into these thing is how you get Pi=3.2.
You can't handle the truth.
"Then the stupids added: At higher speeds, the alert is not required because other factors like tire and wind noise adequately warn pedestrians, NHTSA said." AT HIGHER SPEEDS - WHEN YOU MAKE SIGNIFICANT WIND NOISE - I just don't think the pedeSPLAT I mean do you hear a car before it gets to you (side of highway)? Maybe so. I look before crossing highway, but in town I DO listen.
Make them sound like Harley's. People will quickly decide quiet is acceptable. Problem solved.
"The U.S. National Highway Transportation Department said the rules will cost the auto industry about $39 million annually because automakers will need to add an external waterproof speaker to comply.'
As opposed to the one ALREADY INSTALLED ON MOST EVERY CAR since like.. the 60s? The fuck are these morons smoking?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Two words: wire cutters
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
One of the percs I looked forward to was sneaking up on unsuspecting pedestrians and then honking. Government sucks.
This sig intentionally left blank.
This has to be an option...
... so long as I can make my quiet electric car sound like the Jetson's flying car. In fact, if that's not a standard option on the dashboard display's "Configure Car" menu, I'll be sorely disappointed.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Well-documented danger of silent cars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qawyfg5jRHw
How about just putting a baseball card in the wheel spokes?
Is there a reason Slashdot doesn't spell-check its articles? Must be a really good one; something obvious I'm missing.
Good idea. Now let's have a law that forces tailpipes to shoot their toxins out into the street rather than toward the strollers on the sidewalk. Bet you'll save more than 2400 lives that way.
or drag some cans behind a car
Maybe so. I look before crossing highway, but in town I DO listen.
TOP TIP: You are meant to look (both ways) and listen before crossing any roadway. HTH, HAND!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In short artificial engine noise is utterly unacceptable in my view.
Agreed. The tires make enough noise as it is and many gas engines are so quiet you can barely tell they are running at idle. Noise is a form of pollution and we definitely don't need more of it. This seems to be more a case of anecdotal "data" jumping ahead of the actual facts. All this will accomplish is to add a lot of noise pollution with minimal to no benefit to society.
Someone will say "but what about the blind people? What about the children?" What about them? First off there are incredibly few blind people wandering about and it's not as if we have to dodge them on a routine basis. I honestly cannot recall the last time I actually saw a blind person attempt to cross a road. Certainly hasn't been for at least 20 years and never anywhere near where I live. Seriously, never. Pedestrians in general are not a big problem in most of the country. Maybe it's a problem in big cities but it sure as shit is not a problem in the suburbs or more rural parts of the country. As for children, they don't pay attention to cars that make noise today so it's not as if they are going to start listening to fake noises. Kids wander into streets because they don't know any better, not because they don't hear cars.
all electric cars must emit the clip-clop-clip-clop sound of horses hooves
Because any faster than that and you just can't stop for the deaf guy who steps into the cross-walk right before you get there.
Exactly how is adding noise to a car going to help a DEAF person hear the oncoming traffic? It might help a blind person in theory (though I find those argument specious) but a deaf person isn't going to hear any car no matter how loud it is.
And in plenty of situations, you are dependent on pedestrians hearing cars and protecting themselves.
Pedestrians that depend on hearing cars to protect themselves are not paying attention and are trying to earn a Darwin award. No driver should presume that any pedestrian will be dependent on hearing their car for safety.
You've got no hope of seeing the pedestrian walking behind cars through a parking-lot, and without any sound, they'll step right behind you as you're backing-up.
A) How fast are you backing up? and B) If you can't see well when backing up, then back up SLOWLY enough that pedestrians can take evasive action if necessary. Depending on pedestrians to actually hear your car is idiotic and unsafe.
A $3 speaker and $1 of wiring per car will add up to $39 million?
$4 per car? Oh that's adorable that you think it would be that cheap. I run a company that makes automotive components. I can assure you that it will be no where near that cheap even for the OEMs. A part that costs $4 to produce will cost 4-8X that amount installed in a car after all the mark ups. It will be made by a Tier 3 or 4 company, and then resold 3-4X before getting to the OEM for final assembly with markups and overhead and labor being added each time.
Just for a crude rule of thumb if you want to guess what a part costs to actually make, go to a dealer and find the price. In rough numbers it will probably cost somewhere between 6-8X what it costs to make in most cases. Sometimes more, occasionally less depending on sales volume for the part. So if you have a part that costs $250 at the dealer, it probably cost something like $4 to actually make. For example we make a part that goes into a GM SUV. We sell it to our customer for around $4 and the assembly it goes to costs around $9 to the Tier 1 supplier. If you wander into a dealership and buy that assembly it would cost you north of $700. The markup on dealer parts is insane. My company makes wire harnesses. I've actually stood in line at a dealer watching a guy buy a wire harness for $200 that had *maybe* $5 worth of components and wire in it at wholesale prices.
Do you mean like how digital cameras make a "click" sound when an image is captured?
Which we have the ability to turn off. And when I'm doing wildlife photography I often do turn it off to avoid spooking the subject I'm photographing.
Have you ever thought of how e-mail programs use images like stamps, envelopes, pencils, paper, and so on?
Yes and I think it's retarded that we use an icon of a floppy disk to indicate saving a document since nobody has used floppy disks in 20 years. The kids don't even know what the heck the icon is supposed to represent. It made some sense back in the 90s and earlier but it makes zero sense today. Similarly keeping byproduct sounds of cars just because we are currently accustomed to it is idiotic. Cars making noise isn't a feature - it's a side effect and a polluting one at that.
We use those images because we make a natural connection between sending a note electronically and sending a note by postal service.
Actually a lot of people don't make that connection at all. If you don't believe me I'll be happy to introduce you to some - I have several in my family. There are plenty of people that don't get the "folder" or "file cabinet" or "letter" analogies. At all.
What I fear though is that someone will use a sound that will get kids run over, like "ice cream truck".
How would that be different than today? Do you see kids getting run over every time an ice cream truck drives by? No you do not. Kids don't stay out of the road because of car sounds. They go into the road because they aren't aware of their surroundings which is why parents have to watch them. They don't equate car sounds with danger and they certainly aren't paying attention to the car sounds when chasing their ball into the street.
I almost got run over the other day by a guy backing up his Chevy Volt.
I'm glad you are ok. That said, if you were paying adequate attention to your surroundings and being careful that shouldn't be possible.
First problem: no noise at all. I was walking in a parking lot close to the car and he didn't see me.
So don't walk close to the cars or if you must then pay careful attention. His job is to back up slowly if he don't have complete visibility. Your job is to carefully watch out for your own physical well being and all signs of a vehicle that could move (lights, motion, driver activity, wheel turning, etc). If you can't see what the car is doing then be careful until you are sure. As long as both of you do your jobs there shouldn't be any problems.
There's no excuse for a pedestrian to be hit by a vehicle unless the vehicle is somewhere it shouldn't be - like a sidewalk.
THIS! Pedestrians that get hit are almost invariably doing something stupid. If you are walking in a place where cars normally drive then you are an idiot if you don't adjust your behavior to reflect that reality. Even if you are legally doing the right thing the laws of physics don't care about that. In a collision the car will "win" 100% of the time so any pedestrian that doesn't act accordingly is effectively either suicidal or a child.
That's not to say drivers shouldn't be careful too but common sense dictates that the pedestrians should be extra careful any time they are walking around moving or potentially moving cars.
You can be fairly certain that it's going to be illegal to disable this system, and that if it's not working you're going to get a fix-it ticket.
I've got the money and the points to burn. Bring it on. I'll worry about it when they start actually enforcing noise ordinances against Harley Davidson motorcycles which clearly exceed any reasonable or necessary noise level.
(Not affiliated with them in any way.)
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
A bigger problem is, what happens if some pedestrian leaps out from behind a bush onto your hood and it's revealed that you've disabled the system?
That's my problem isn't it? Yes I'd be taking a legal risk. I don't really think it is a a meaningful risk or that the likelihood of it becoming a problem is significant but I acknowledge that it is a potential risk.
If they are too stupid to look twice before crossing a road, maybe they deserve a Darwin award.
I was looking forward to a quieter life when the slowing moving traffic outside my window would be near silent. Instead it'll be all sorts of crap synthetic noises.
User customization could get interesting like ring tines I can see every thing from sports car sounds to cartoon sounds to bizarre and strange sound effects
I would go for the Flintstones bongo sounds Barney Rubble made when running and the feet slapping sound Fred Flintstone made when accelerating.
Or maybe the screaming of the screamapiller form the Simpsons.
Maybe continuous fart sounds, steam engine train sounds, sewing machine noised, for succor fans gooooooooaaaaalllll, airplay noises jet or prop, toilet flushing and so on.....
Someday, we may all be used to silent cars, but currently a person's brain processes a silent car as turned off and no danger. I had my first electric car in the mid '70's - one my dad and I built. After several incidents of pedestrians stepping in front of the car - just as I was about to start accelerating, we added a small buzzer to act as "engine noise" whenever the car was armed and dangerous. It was a simple fix and it worked. There may be other solutions, but this one does not require reprogramming people.
why not on all cars then? i have a toyota that is almost silent whlle idling and cruising at low speeds. it's so quiet that numerous times my girl has tried to start it when it was already running. some of the newer cars are dead quiet, so i don't see why they would mandate it just for electric or hybrid vehicles. it should be "if the vehicle is emitting sound below a certain decibel, then they should make a specified noise at that decibel threshold or above". no need to make them loud. and 2400 injuries a year is hardly enough in my eyes to mandate the automotive industry to do this. more people fall down the stairs or fall out of bed each year and injure themselves. what next, the bedding industry mandate all bedframes to have safety bars on each side to protect the people from falling out of bed and injuring themselves? before it was that cars are too loud, now cars are too quiet. we're living in a pc nerfed up world nowadays, and it's getting crazy as fuck.
The taxi had an internal combustion engine, anyway, and there were plenty of other vehicles each making their own noise. I don't see how, if it were electric, adding noise could've helped.
Exactly. In the places one is most likely to encounter a blind person there is copious traffic noise and the circumstances are unlikely to be such that adding more noise is going make a difference.
Basically we are imagining problems and "solving" them by maintaining an approximation of the status quo even though there is no evidence that the status quo is a good situation.
I already do this (with a gas guzzler, no less) by driving with one hand on the horn the whole time to politely let everyone know they need to get out of my way.
sorry typos drive me crazy
We should be able to DL some kind of "fart app" for the car. Surely those random fart noises would convince the pedestrians to stay out of the way.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I'm uploading a porn video soundtrack to my car.
"Could be worse...could be raining." Igor
It's a problem for everyone around you who would have been warned had the sound been present - but who now won't be.
Which is precisely no one. The notion that the noise pollution my car puts out is some sort of useful or valuable warning to those around me is delusional. Anyone who actually depends on hearing a car as a means to remain safe is behaving in a very irresponsible and dangerous manner. There are plenty of gasoline powered cars that are nearly silent and somehow we've managed to avoid mass fatalities of pedestrians anyway.
https://youtu.be/krPQ1PMM00Y
Is now required to march in front of your car at low speeds. Jobs are jobs.
Just make them bigger for the "spokes" for the wheels. Then, EVER car will sounds like a rice burner with the huge mufflers :)
US voters finalize the Obama administration and government tyranny over the private sector
Is it not inevitable that we start off with electric cars making realistic engine noises, like cellphones making regular ringtones. We then progress to customized tones and hacked tones allowing everyone to have unique 'ringtones' for their electric cars and, even if made illegal, it becomes pervasive and eventually you end up with as many annoying car tones as you did ringtones in the 00's and next thing you know you are being run over by a Tesla doing Crazy Frog.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokey_Dokes
You're welcome! ;)
I want the noise the Jetson's cars made
How about just using that backup beeping for both going forward and in reverese.
But the car better be able to play the inverse to cancel out the noise inside the car....wait - now I cannot tell if the external sound device is working or not!
I don't mind this at all as long as I can download the noise I want. I plan to change mine weekly. One day a Ferrari, the next day I might go with "sick squirrel". Keep it creative.
The NHTSA traffic study that inspired this legislation and (also a related recommendation from an advocacy group for the blind) was unbelievably bad science.
They did not adjust their findings for the (well documented) geographic distribution of EVs and PZEVs. They compared national averages for gas cars with national averages for EVs - this is invalid methodology, because EVs are predominant in urban environments where pedestrian/car accidents are very much more common than rural environments where there isn't sufficient charging infrastructure to support EVs. When adjustments are applied, there is no difference between the rate of gas car and EV pedestrian/car accidents. Then, the study fantasizes an unsupported conclusion - having falsely concluded that EVs are more likely to run down pedestrians (they aren't) the NHTSA report authors then completely invent a rationale to explain this, with *no data to support that rationale*. It's just "EVs are quiet therefore the problem is EVs are quiet". Literally no falsing or experimentation whatsoever, just guesswork. Bad science.
As I understand this legislation, it purports to help the blind avoid quiet cars, but does not do that. It actually just penalizes the makers of EVs and PZEVs while allowing diesel and gasoline cars to be as silent as they wish, up to and including total silence.
However, there's nothing wrong with having noisemakers on EVs and PZEVs. It's just unfair to exempt pollutionmobiles from audio requirements, that's all. It's blatant market manipulation in favor of the Petroleum industry, targeted at Tesla, the only EV that doesn't already have a noisemaker.
This was made law in France many years ago, and a standard (recognizable) set of sound loops were created by designers specially for this purpose:
A bell/bowl ringing
A gelug monk chanting
The crackle of electricity
two more I cannot recall...
As a cyclist, I'm glad to see this idea finally coming to pass. I only hope we implement it half as well as the French did, although for some reason, I seem to recall they cancelled this plan before it was implemented.
Because I just don't see too many little cars scooting along right at the speed limit blasting 100 decibels out.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Seriously, a centrifugal clutch with a bell ringer on a take off from the drive train would work well for about $50 a unit. You hear ding ding ding raising in rapidity as the vehicle moves until the speed gets high enough the clutch locks out the bell ringer. Problem solved.
Or, take off the speedometer that would beep the horn until a certain rpm. Could be a cheap bolt on to the speedo (would work with electrical speedo sensor or a mechanical speedo).
NRRPT/RCT
Great. Just when I was finally hoping we'd get one day to no longer have to deal with motor noises from the garage. That, and those ridiculously loud beep-beep honks that tell everyone if you locked your car or not.
I want my car to play a little tune when I drive through the Safeway parking lot.
Like an icecream truck, but without all the murdered children.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Why do these stupid pedestrians need to be protected? Don't just listen for cars, LOOK before crossing! We have an opportunity here to make roads quiet. Now learn the green cross code and quit your whining!