The Car Hub

The Electric Car, A Silent Success.
The pure electric car is with us now, albeit with limited range and performance, for average road cars, which illustrates the success motor engineers have achieved to date.
The benefits of electric cars are well known, the two main ones being non-dependence on fossil fuels and secondly their green credentials in the non-production of carbon gas emissions.
With success comes problems – always, the problem with electric cars is that they are quiet, yes you heard me – quiet.
The enclosed graph shows that to be heard by pedestrians an electric car must reach 12.4mph to attain the same sound level that a conventional car engine makes.
The problem is being taken very seriously by the UK government, the U.S.A. senate and also the Japanese government because of the dangers, at low speeds, posed to the blind, the partially sighted, pedestrians, children and also cyclists.
To try to overcome the problem, engineers from Lotus are working on a system to reproduce the sound of a normal combustion engine which can be projected forward as a warning.
As with everything new these days new laws will have to be introduced to control the electric car “synthetic” sounds produced.
Bill Williams
www.thecarhub.net