Federal auto safety regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began hearings Monday on how to address a new safety concern. The meeting illustrates the unique challenges automakers face as they try to replace the internal combustion engine with something more efficient. The problem? Electric cars, and hybrid cars able to run up to significant speeds on electric power alone are quiet. Too quiet.
The Seattle Times explains, "Advocates for the blind want the government to set minimum sound standards for new cars and trucks, pointing to potential safety hazards for blind pedestrians who can't hear silent gas-electric hybrid vehicles." Deborah Kent Stein of the National Federation of the Blind told regulators, "For us, these cars are invisible."
The Detroit News adds, "The concern comes as hybrid vehicle sales continue to increase. They jumped by 38 percent in 2007 to 350,000 vehicles. General Motors Corp. has predicted that at least 80 percent of its vehicles will be hybrids by 2020." A recent University of California, Riverside study found that hybrids operating at 5 mph "'need to be 74 percent closer' than a conventional internal combustion vehicle before they make enough noise for their location to be heard. Above 20 or 25 miles an hour, hybrid or electric car tires make enough noise to make them loud enough, said Lawrence Rosenblum, the study's author."
Consumer Affairs notes, "A California start-up company, Enhanced Vehicle Acoustics, is developing a system called the Pedestrian Awareness Noise-Emitting Device and Application (PANDA). The system puts a small speaker near each front wheel of a hybrid and emits the sound of an internal combustion engine to warn pedestrians. The system requires no more power than a car radio and shuts off at speeds above 25 mph." [And here our Lead Editor adds, "It would be really cool if you could program what sound you wanted to broadcast. I vote for a recording of James Earl Jones booming, "LOOK OUT! HERE COMES AN ELECTRIC CAR!"]
So, in a few years, many of the vehicles on U.S. roads could well be electric or hybrid cars featuring speakers that make them sound like the old gas guzzlers they replaced. It's odd, yes, but if it makes them safer, then give us a Tesla Roaster playing a CD track of the exhaust note of the Cadillac Escalade it just left in the dust.
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