Whilst the deaf may suffer, I see no reason for EV's to make any sound.
It might be nice to finally have more acoustically peaceful roads in a few years time.
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the only way i would accept an electric car was if it was nearly silent aswell as the tyres being a lot less noisy than they are now.
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I reckon that we don't realise how much we rely upon the noise of a car to spot it approaching. It will not be easy to unlearn and silent cars probably would be very dangerous for that reason.
Perhaps the driver could pick their own custom noise, just like a ringtone. You'd certainly notice the Crazy Frog approaching...
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>> You'd certainly notice the Crazy Frog approaching...
I'd rather have this to accompany my silent electric car:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Tue 17 May 11 at 14:04
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>> I'd rather have this to accompany my silent electric car:
>>
>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg
Gave me a good chuckle. I can't help but picture a bunch of cars chasing around a roundabout to the Benny Hill song.
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>> Gave me a good chuckle. I can't help but picture a bunch of cars chasing
>> around a roundabout to the Benny Hill song.
FYI en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakety_Sax
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Crazy Frog - did some random googling and found a Welsh version. The language is too hefty for this site sadly, obviously not created by a chapel-goer but would go down a storm in Caernarfon on a leccy car.
self moderated
Cut and paste only if you're not really offended by very bad language.
Last edited by: Pugugly on Tue 17 May 11 at 14:13
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Is it me, or is the crazy frog theme the worse thing ever since the dawn of time?
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maybe a compromise. silent above 50mph on main roads and dual carriageways but a noise made when in the towns
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This was on Ken Bruce, with people suggesting noises.
The best was "windy millers windmill"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d27hPy38EyI
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I've been caught out by the neighbour's Prius's silent approach and almost stepped offthe kerb in front of him.
Long ago, when Lands Lane/Albion St in Leeds were one of the country's first 'pedestrian precincts' there was an electric bus provided. The problem of it's silence was, IIRC, solved by it playing a recording of horses hooves. Big plodding Shires rather than Red Rum on the home straight!!
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 17 May 11 at 14:04
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The first electric car I drove was a prototype Peugeot 106 in the early 1990s - it was a very strange experience due to the eery quietness and I certainly had to be careful in the vicinity of pedestrians, who were generally unaware of its presence.
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It slightly concerns me that people are worried about stepping off the kerb in front of a car they haven't heard but seem perfectly happy to step off in front of a cyclist doing 15mph.
And what about those two squishy things that sit either side of your nose. Eyes I think they're called. Nature gave 'em to us for a reason - a survival wossname. Learn to use 'em.
Yes, I know you're less likely to be killed by a bloke on a bike but it can happen.
;-)
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>> Yes, I know you're less likely to be killed by a bloke on a bike
>> but it can happen.
But you have the satisfaction of taking out the bloke on the bike with you.
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>
>> But you have the satisfaction of taking out the bloke on the bike with you.
>>
>>
Yup, and ending up with a handle bar lodged in your kidney...
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If only a very fleeting one...
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This has been discussed before.
Silent vehicles should sense anything in front of them (or behind if they are reversing) and let out a burst of sound, the closer the louder, to warn any protoplasm of its impending doom.
Sound could be at the owner's choice: an artillery salvo, the demented yowl of a Porsche 917 getting wheelspin in the rain, a short extract from the Alleluia Chorus... Rush hour in big cities would be a feast of aural surprises. I am looking forward to it.
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And a playing card on the spokes of a bicycke wheels. There's a similar debate in motorcycling magazines on the same problem with electric two wheelers....
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>>
>>
>> Sound could be at the owner's choice: an artillery salvo, the demented yowl of a
>> Porsche 917 getting wheelspin in the rain, a short extract from the Alleluia Chorus...
>>
>>
I agree. It's going to be fun.
But all those things are surely possible as extras on a conventional car already, yet AFAIK no one ever fits a personalisable noise box.
On my shopping list:
Queen Mary type foghorn
Deltic diesel thundering through at 100 mph
Shattering plate glass in a ram raid
Mind the gap, said in that old London transport voice
Clip clop creak of a Young's brewery dray, or perhaps a whole Victorian street scene, complete with news boy shouting "Read all abaht it! Mafeking relieved!"
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>> But all those things are surely possible as extras on a conventional car already, yet AFAIK no one ever fits a
Quite CP. Ve haf ze technology... all that's needed is the will. If only this government had a Minister for Fun to combat all the safety and civilized-behaviour wonks...
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>>Silent vehicles should sense anything in front of them (or behind if they are reversing) and let out a burst of sound, the closer the louder, to warn any protoplasm of its impending doom.
>>
That could be bit late if a child emerges from between parked cars.
There are so many of the Pious cars in my area it certainly is a concern re stealth driving.
Heard a guys ring tone that might work. It was the airaid siren that got louder and louder until he answered it. No idea what the max volume was.
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When I was in the Sixth Form, one of my fellow prefects took charge of his mother's Austin 2200 and installed a micrphone in the cockpit connected to a loudhailer beneath the radiator grille. This was to inform errant non-sixth formers that they should not be outside school bounds and gallavanting around town at lunch time, and that they should return fifthwith or suffer the consequences of a trip to the Head's study.
:-)
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>> This has been discussed before.
>>
>> Silent vehicles should sense anything in front of them (or behind if they are reversing)
>> and let out a burst of sound, the closer the louder, to warn any protoplasm
>> of its impending doom.
Sounds like a clever idea, but a few seconds thought show that it wouldn't work.
It would need to be able to sense somebody about to step out from behind a bus, for example, and also be able to tell whether somebody was going to step off the pavement (or make a noise every time there was somebody on a nearby pavement).
Classic case of trying to over-design. Just keep it simple and let them make a constant noise.
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Sorry SS, but no. That would be far too boring and droning.
Far better to have the fun and surprise of sudden howls and bursts of small-arms fire or loud music. Don't forget that these sensors, which as you rightly point out will be completely moronic like all electronic devices, won't be able to tell the difference between a pedestrian, a bollard and another vehicle. That's what will make urban rush-hours so endlessly entertaining and stressful.
The deaths of a few careless children and deaf oldsters are a small price to pay if you ask me.
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>> Far better to have the fun and surprise of sudden howls and bursts of small-arms
>> fire or loud music.
Which is, of course, why so many young men drive around with their stereos blaring. Some might think that they are just trying to assert themselves on their surroundings when they have so few other ways to do so, and some might think that they are just being anti-social for the hell of it.
In fact, they are simply acknowledging that their inexperience makes them a hazard to other road users, and trying to responsibly alert those other road users to their presence.
Last edited by: SteelSpark on Tue 17 May 11 at 17:37
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>> Which is, of course, why so many young men drive around with their stereos blaring.
Yes, I miss the whumpa-whumpa-whumpa boys in their various barryboy and gangsta guises in my old manor up the Smoke... (sighs sadly) They hardly have them at all down here in the AONB I live in, persecuted fellow that I am...
You don't often see or hear blues and twos out here either, while in my old house they came past 20 times or more on a good day.
Believe me when I say that cockerels crowing nearby at bedtime, 4 a.m. or so, and the guineafowl clattering to themselves because they think they may have seen that fat stupid idle old dog fox, pass completely unnoticed with a background like mine (smirks smugly).
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>> Silent vehicles should sense anything in front of them (or behind if they are reversing)
>> and let out a burst of sound, the closer the louder, to warn any protoplasm
>> of its impending doom.
>>
They do already, it's called the horn, although some driver input is required. ;0)
I believe they made "La cucaracha" and "Colonel bogey" air horns illegal some time ago, so will they be making a come back ?
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>>I believe they made "La cucaracha" and "Colonel bogey" air horns illegal some time ago, so will they be making a come back ?
IIRC they're only illegal on vehicles first registered after a certain date, 1972 perhaps?
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Almost right - 1st August 1973.
I had to cheat to get the right answer.
www.motuk.co.uk/manual_160.htm
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>> But you have the satisfaction of taking out the bloke on the bike with you
Did exactly this, last summer, crossing the road through a traffic jam in Skegness. Silly sod shouldn't have been going so fast up the kerb side of the traffic, should he. Still hurt though - a good 4" gouge on one shin.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 19 May 11 at 01:28
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Electric vehicles are a problem for pedestrians, (drivers on foot). Swiss alpine villages where internal combustion powered cars are banned use milk floats to transport luggage from the rail station to the hotels, these are fitted with cowbells to warn of their approach.
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I wonder if anyone got run over by an old fashioned milk float ? Maybe the rattling bottles may have been enough of a warning.
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>> I wonder if anyone got run over by an old fashioned milk float ? Maybe
>> the rattling bottles may have been enough of a warning.
>>
Put that on my list too.
Also a rag and bone man, unintelligibly shouting "old clothes and bones".
The biggest problem will be recharging the cars, as perhaps 90% live in the road.
Wait for the first damages claim from someone tripping over a trailing extension lead, or adaptor rage as too many try and share the same socket.
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AC,
Seems the private sector are already there on the Ministry of Fun thing..
www.admiralgroup.co.uk/about/company_culture.php
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>> Also a rag and bone man, unintelligibly shouting "old clothes and bones".
Coincidence (great minds think alike): I had done an edit mentioning rag and bone men CP, but the ghastly pink thing stopped me from posting it.
In Bath during the war I didn't understand their mournful cries of 'HEP... ho!', but my mother told me they were shouting 'rag and bone!'. Didn't sound like it to me aged six or so.
My youngest daughter, then a small child, was puzzled by the slogans being shouted at some noisy demo against the much execrated but sometimes right Mrs Thatcher. She asked why people were bawling: 'Baggy baggy baggy, oh oh oh!'
We explained that they were trying to shout 'Maggie Maggie Maggie, out out out!' but probably all had head colds and speech impediments.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 17 May 11 at 15:16
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>> The biggest problem will be recharging the cars, as perhaps 90% live in the road.
>> Wait for the first damages claim from someone tripping over a trailing extension lead, or
>> adaptor rage as too many try and share the same socket.
>>
The biggest problem will be the lights going out when a few tens of thousands plug their cars in at the same time.
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>>The biggest problem will be recharging the cars, as perhaps 90% live in the road.
>>
>>Wait for the first damages claim from someone tripping over a trailing extension lead, .........
Sadly the first death has happened.
www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/grace_kelly_s_former_pa_died_after_tripping_over_electric_car_lead_1_909990
"A former personal assistant to the actress and former Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly, has died after tripping over while charging her electric car outside her Maida Vale home.
Phyllis Earl, 77, fractured her hip when she fell over the charging cable connected to her beloved G-Wiz on Randolph Avenue and died in hospital after complications during surgery."
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>> I wonder if anyone got run over by an old fashioned milk float ? Maybe the rattling bottles may have been enough of a warning.
>>
The sound of the horses hooves were the give away.
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>> But you have the satisfaction of taking out the bloke on the bike with you.
>>
>>
Which is of course priceless.
But for the same reason EVs should be noisy. I've been caught out by pesky G-Wizzes too often.
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They should have a "Jericho Trumpet" wailing siren similar to that of the Junkers Ju87.
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I've seen an item on ebay that plugs into the aux power socket and picking up the engine revs from the resulting signal plays back a selectable 4-cylinder, 6, V8 or V12 engine exhaust note through the car sound system.
Put a speaker in the front and you can be any car you want!
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Heavily tuned flathead Ford, BLATBLATBLATBLATBLAT!, oh yeah...
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They won't have to make extra noise. Most of the noise on a modern car is from the tyres - that won't change with electric cars unless they seriously reduce the tyre width.
Bring it on. Apart from a few heroes like the Focus RS blasting it's straight five skirl through the streets accompanied by wastegate chatter, cars are getting very boring soundwise, unless you can afford something like a Pagani Zonda.
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Never mind the lack of noise. Just think about all the extra pollution there'll be from power stations. The electricity needed to charge up the batteries doesn't come out of thin air.
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Agreed, electricity is just a pollution transfer system.
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>> Agreed, electricity is just a pollution transfer system.
Which is exactly what you want in a City. It's ok to produce pollution (there's no affordable alternative) but if you can transfer the pollution away from people, result!
Also assuming coal fired power station, leccy wheels require making only 1/4 of the pollution of the petrol / diesel alternative. With Nuclear, or even wind / hydro sourcing as common in Scotland, that figure drops to below the "we don't care" line.
Leccy powered small cars in city's make a lot of sense to me, but make little / no sense outside a city environment as far as i can see.
On the noise issue, TNT run a few wagons on batteries through Glasgow city centre, they're weird. The noise of the box van shuddering is the only sound and the staccato thuds over potholes followed by silence are really weird.
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Most of the noise from electric cars will come from the gasping and swearing of the unfortunate passengers pushing them.
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>>Also assuming coal fired power station, leccy wheels require making only 1/4 of the pollution of the petrol / diesel alternative.
IIRC I saw a figure of 40% efficiency delivering the leccy stuff to a socket from a fossilised fuel source. Factor in the efficiency of charging and power delivery..............
How does burning the stuff under the bonnet compare to that?
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>> >>
>>
>> How does burning the stuff under the bonnet compare to that?
>>
They are much faster, for a start. American steam cars of the early 1900s fuelled by parafin and flash boilers had an impressive performance. 0- 60 in 11 seconds was not bad in 1909!
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I remember reading something about this back in January.
BMW, Audi and Mercedes are all talking this very seriously:
tinyurl.com/5vn2kba link to bmwblog
also covered at egmcartech: tinyurl.com/23zjnvv
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"Silent Death" has been a significant problem before....
tinyurl.com/3dsg79q
I suspect the solution is to look regardless of whether or not your ears are expecting a problem (it works for me).
It will probably need something horrible like the "Clunk - Click, every trip" campaign to educate the masses.
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>> the solution is to look regardless of whether or not your ears are expecting a problem
Yes. I am no more likely to walk in front of a silent car than one that makes a noise: that is, not very likely at all, but we all have aberrant moments when distracted by some other stimulus or even our own thoughts.
Of course the primary responsibility for not running people over lies with the driver as any fule kno. But his work is not made easier by pedestrians lost in their own thoughts, self-important and spoiled absolutely rotten by ridiculously low speed limits and screaming twittish anti-car propaganda crap from bleeding heart protoplasm lovers. Where do they find these people? Anyway pedestrians often imagine that if it isn't their fault (and they have been trained to believe that it is always the driver's fault) it won't really count. This can cause frightful grief to them and to innocent vehicle drivers.
However:
If we try to watch out and drivers do too, not many will die or be maimed or sued or jailed or banned from driving or made to feel guilty for the rest of their lives. Personally I think that's good enough.
(Written at bedtime, wearing a pedestrian's hat)
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Should electric cars go vroom? - TheManWithNoName
