US Finalizes Rules That Require Quiet Hyrbid and Electric Cars To Make Noise At Low Speeds (reuters.com) 361
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.
Totally Unnecessary (Score:3, Funny)
In Trumpamerica, hybrids and electric cars will be replaced by God-fearing American coal burning cars!
The Chevy Cylon [ Re:Totally Unnecessary] (Score:5, Insightful)
A.I. having religion? What could possibly wrong?
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Not hybrids. Hyrbids. A derp-version of a hybrid.
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Finally a cra for us dyslexics!
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Dyslexics of the world untie!
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Or, as the headline read, "Dyslexia For Cure Found" ;)
I know, I shouldn't make jokes about dyslexics. My sister is dyslexic. I fully understand that it's dyslexic being hell.
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Depends on the degree of dislexia, I guess.
My dislexia is bottom line to my advantage. I read about 4-5 times as fast as 'mormal' people and spelling mistakes dint stop me. As a mistake like dint/dont my brain does not even recognize. And if there would be a reading stop, because a typo stops me cold, it is usually obvious that i and o are just one key appart and that dint was supposed to mean dont.
However my school life was pure hell. Teachers asking me how to spell something and I spelled it right and the
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Did you hear about the agnostic dyslexic insomniac?
He laid awake at night wondering if there is a dog.
Re: Totally Unnecessary (Score:2)
> Finally a cra for us dyslexics!
Q. Do you have dyslexia
A. No, I don't have sex daily. Who has time for that? /sorry not sorry
Re:Totally Unnecessary (Score:4, Funny)
Hang a cow bell on the undercarriage.
Problem solved.
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Re: Totally Unnecessary (Score:3)
If pedestrians would fucking look up from their phones once in a while and actually pay attention, this would be a non-issue.
But since we can't fix stupid, we rely on tech to keep us safe :|
The future is going to be magic level technology, wielded by complete idiots.
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Ya. That's right. It's totally them darn kids and their phones.
I'm going on the assumption that you've been around an electric car before at low speeds to hear how quiet they are. I know I have. Frankly, all I heard was the quiet creaking of the tires as it moved over pebbles and a very faint whine of the electric motor(s). It would be entirely possible to miss those noises, in my opinion, face-in-smartphone not withstanding. And I say this as a person who is routinely very keenly aware of my surroundings.
I
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first time I saw an electric rolling by, my first fucking thought was... holy fuck is that quiet.
my second thought was... this will be a nightmare for the blind pedestrian.
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this is a joke, or at least was a joke. Now it's probably a reality
Reality is the real joke.
No beeping please (Score:5, Insightful)
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If these things ever become economical, mine will make the Knight Rider noise.
Re:No beeping please (Score:4, Interesting)
I want my Tesla to sound like the '68 MGB-GT I had in college with the hole in the muffler. Let me tell you, that was a head-turner.
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How about a fart sound?
That would get some attention.
Re: No beeping please (Score:2)
Maybe they're just fans of 80s arcade games.
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Screw that, I want one that sounds like an F-4 on afterburners.
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I don't get what the big problem is either.
I was once startled by an electric car creeping up on me. I went "oh, oops, there's a car". That was all, no ambulance required, I didn't even need psychologic counseling.
With hundreds of thousands of electric cars on the road today, just how many people have actually been injured by one because they didn't hear it? No "estimates" please, has anyone on this planet actually been hurt by one at low speed?
If it's fast enough to hurt you, it's fast enough to be heard.
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I'm taking the word of the experts that the danger is higher with electric cars because of their silence. I don't think they are asking for more noise than already exists from ICE cars, so you won't be disrupting the quiet on the street.
I think its more of a meme that the electrics are so quiet. My old school ICE Jeep is so quiet you can barely hear it. the engine. I suppose if you ran about 2 gears too low you could get some noise. But anything below 2K rpm, it's darn near silent. Tire noise is the main and loudest component.
The day may come when we all have to have sirens on our vehicles.
And to think when I was a youngster, I got pulled over for making too much noise in my Mach 1. Now we may be pulled over for not making enough n
Trump is requesting an amendment (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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/sarcasm You mean the saying "Loud Pipes Saves Lives" isn't true? But I read it on the internet !
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About two years ago I was offered the chance to ride the Harley Livewire electric motorcycle (http://www.harley-davidson.com/content/h-d/en_US/home/motorcycles/project-livewire.html).
I was part of a group of 6 other electric bikes that had to follow a regular ICE bike on a 5 mile trek around town. I was amazed at how quiet the thing is; dead silence at a stop light is a pretty weird feeling.
On the way back to the dealership, the 7 of us went to pull into the parking lot. There was a group of two pedestria
Re: Trump is requesting an amendment (Score:3)
They tried, but ultimately failed.
http://articles.latimes.com/20... [latimes.com]
Re:No beeping please (Score:4, Informative)
For europansies: 19kRPM old F1 engine noise. You'll need a few thousand watts to get the volume right.
For red blooded americans: Top fuel engine noise. You'll need a few hundred thousand watts to get the volume right.
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If you've never been to a NHRA top fuel race, you don't know. It will shake the farts right out of you at 100 meters.
IMHO you need some skinny Americans in your fart orchestra. You can't have a choir of all basses.
Should have some queefers too. Just to round out the sound. Going to need a few of those too. Not much range each (in my experience).
Damn it's early, posting silly things, half awake.
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Hissing or fake engine noise.
How about they let customers decide on what sound is made? Then I can look forward to being hit by some hipster in a Tesla playing Daft Punk.
Re:No beeping please (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No beeping please (Score:5, Funny)
Hissing or fake engine noise.
Actually, due to a failure to read the entire bill carefully... Congress has inadvertently required that, starting with the 2019 model year, electric cars traveling less than 10 miles per hour continually play "Smack My Bitch Up" at 113 dB.
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fake engine noise
Why not? [youtube.com] It'll make those jay-walkers think twice about stepping off the curb.
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I think it would be a lot funnier to play the sounds of screeching brakes whenever a pedestrian walks in front of your car.
And I want the sound of Darth Vader's Tie Fighter when I'm moving, and laser fire for the horn. "I have you now!" Pew-pew!
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For several reasons. Firstly using road noise as a means to determine whether it is safe to step out into the road is insanely dumb and will/does kill people already, as there are millions of journeys on roads that are already in effect silent. Here is a link to where a pedestrian step out into the road leading to the death of a cyclist.
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/n... [thecourier.co.uk]
So in the first instance if you are using traffic noise as a proxy for determining whether it is safe to step out into the road your are a c
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I'd like a continuous version of the sound of the Millenium Falcon malfunctioning [youtu.be] while trying to go into hyperspace. ;)
(the core of the sound is a biplane inertia starter motor [youtu.be] :) )
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Unobtrusive white noise should be mandated.
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Unobtrusive white noise should be mandated.
As a hearing impaired person will this require someone sitting on the hood of the car signing "Vroom" Vroom"?
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The industry already spent lot of time developing these sounds. Nissan, Toyota and GM already have these systems and I'm willing to bet others do too.
Not my video, but this is what my Gen2 Volt does at Pedestrian alert sound
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Hissing or fake engine noise.
You should be able to upload your own WAV file to the car
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Hissing or fake engine noise.
You should be able to upload your own WAV file to the car
Sure - now get the music industry involve with suing car owners.
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Already implemented in Japan as an optional extra - here is a video of a Prius emitting a fairly cool whirring noise. I think sampling the Spinners out of Blade Runner is clearly the way to go.
https://youtu.be/3Vy42zphNp4 [youtu.be]
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Hissing or fake engine noise.
Hopefully we can choose the sound. I'd love the old Crispy critters cereal theme song or an old Fairbanks-Morse hit and miss engine. This might be the thing that really puts these cars on the map.
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How about the sounds of a team of horses clopping along?
This reminds me of the law passed during the early days of automobiles, requiring that a man walk in front of a car with a red flag (by day) or lantern (by night), so the horses wouldn't be frightened....
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Jetsons-sounding cars would be awesome ;) Or you could go on the weird end with something like whale song or chattering dolphins. Or on the mean end, the sound of fingernails being scratched across a chalkboard.
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I take back my earlier post about F4 on afterburner. Jetson's car is way cooler.
external waterproof speakers (Score:3)
Can it be the theme to Jaws? (Score:5, Funny)
That will make those pedestrians get out of the way.
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Really. The fucking election is done already. Can't we finally get a break from that shit?
In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
Red Flag Laws [wikipedia.org]
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Sorry, but this really is a problem, if not a difficult one. Perhaps it should sound like an ice cream vendor?
More seriously, just amplifying the tire on the road noise should suffice. And you don't need many decibels.
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That's the solution - get all the children to run into the street!
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No, it's not a problem. By now we already have hundreds of thousands of electric cars on the road. How many people have actually been injured by one at low speed?
Startled, yes, that can happen. Happened to me once, I admit. "Oops, there's a car, sorry!". End of story. When a car is traveling fast enough to hurt you, it's fast enough for you to hear it. Even the noise fans agree it's only a "problem" at low speed, but at those speeds there is no problem because the driver can stop on a dime.
At low speed, the
earbuds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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Like I said uptread, Top fuel engine noise. A few hundred thousand watts for speaker power.
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So you drive about 5MPH, right? 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.
And in plenty of situations, you are dependent on pedestrians hearing cars and protecting themselves. You've got no hope of seeing the pedestrian walking behind cars through a parking-lot, and without any sound, they'll step right
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What they should do is lower the noise threshold on all new cars AND MOTORBIKES, and if makers can't match that, then so be it (just like new pollution levels), y
Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
"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.
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GM will claim they have to raise the price by $4500.
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Of course.
$10 in parts per car.
$2.5M NRE engineering costs.
$50M management bickering over the sound.
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"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.
If you assume they manufacture ~500k new hybrids per year, then their quote works out to $78 per hybrid. To me, I wouldn't be put off buying a car if it was $32,608 instead of $32,530.
As for the speaker, if it's in the engine compartment it's probably rated for temperatures from -40 through 150F, if not more. Plus it's likely going to be exposed to a LOT of dirt/dust/water, while still needing to be heard. It also needs to probably make some non-trivial sound that is based on speed and shuts on/off appr
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Motor whine (Score:2)
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.
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It takes a while to learn it. I bike regularly in a place with a lot of electric cars, and I realized that I few months ago, I had internalized their particular noise and could now sense they were in my blind spot. Until I retrained my brain to recognize them, though, I had been filtering them out because they were not what I had learned cars sound like for the last few decades.
Stupid rule.... (Score:2)
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.
Cash cow coupled with internet connectivity (Score:2)
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
Wait.... what? (Score:2)
"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 pres
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I almost got run over the other day by a guy backing up his Chevy Volt.
First problem: no noise at all. I was walking in a parking lot close to the car and he didn't see me.
Second problem: the backup light is near the ground under an overhanging piece. If you are close to the car, you can't see it!
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"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?
Yes, "estimates". You know, that thing you use statistics to do.
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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.
I've stopped students from walking into the path of buses. If you cant hear the whine of their tires, and theengine, and especially the weird wubwubwubwub noise they make as they slow down, nothing will work.
A better idea is to have a sensor on their smartphone that tesxts them "Hey Asshole, you're about to get run over by that bus you are gonna step in front of!"
Speakers? (Score:2)
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Drill a hole or to in the muffler if you must.
Or hang some bells from the reins, or just crack your whip more loudly.
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What muffler?
In related news ... (Score:2)
Prius Engine Noise (Score:2)
Something like this [youtube.com]
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Toyota already has it (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Card in the spokes (Score:2)
We loved that when I was liddle
so if you want to sneak up on someone... (Score:2)
don't slow down.
Uploadable ringtones to your car? (Score:2)
I can imagine it now... Tie fighter noises all over the place.
Cool!!! (Score:2)
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How about just Freddy Mercury?
Other countries already have this (Score:3)
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.
Requirement (Score:2)
I hope they settle on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (Crazy Frog)
Music (Score:2)
Screw engine simulated noises. I want my Prius to play Ride of the Valkyries really loud!
Idiots... (Score:2)
"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?
Simple solution (Score:3)
Two words: wire cutters
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Two words: wire cutters
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.
Not concerned (Score:3)
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.
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I've got the money and the points to burn. Bring it on.
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? Suddenly you have a whole new problem.
My risk (Score:3)
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.
Sure, take all the fun out of it. (Score:2)
One of the percs I looked forward to was sneaking up on unsuspecting pedestrians and then honking. Government sucks.
Doesn't bother me at all... (Score:2)
... 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.
A cheaper alternative .... (Score:2)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
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Do you mean like how digital cameras make a "click" sound when an image is captured? There's a lot of things we do because that is how we are used to them. Have you ever thought of how e-mail programs use images like stamps, envelopes, pencils, paper, and so on? We use those images because we make a natural connection between sending a note electronically and sending a note by postal service.
If people are allowed to choose the sound their vehicles make when moving then I expect a lot of sounds that mimic
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Yeah on most of the older stuff it was a setting.
on the recent stuff you have to mod the firmware to get it to shut up.
That said it would be pretty cool if we got a choice of car noises for low speed. If not that will likely become a fairly popular mod.
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Fucking this. I live close to a stop sign, currently maybe once an hour I hear some asshole on his Harley. Last thing I want is to hear a bunch of assholes in naturally quiet cars blasting the Star Wars theme, or Banana Phone, or some fart they think is funny. Why not move to the country? You can be grumpy there a lot easier.