Electric Cars - Can you hear them??

Philcho

I've been spooked before by cars that i don't hear coming usually big trucks getting too damn close though. Then again i usually "sense" a car coming up on me though i rarely check to see what's behind me unless i'm about to change lanes or what not..

mitb

I think this is only really an issue at low speeds- far more noise is generated by tyres than engines, and hybrid cars like the Prius are only electric until about 15mph when the petrol motor kicks in. I still don't want to get run over at 14mph but there aren't a lot of purely electric vehicles about so the silent 60mph menace is not something to get worried about. Plus tyre noise would be big at that speed.
As everyone has said, look first , don't rely on cyclist spider-sense and you won't get ploughed into by a G-Wiz.

The Rookie

mitb wrote:

ploughed into by a G-Wiz.

Just as well, you'd do some serious damage to the G-whizz and driver!

Simon

Ginjafro

Many of the posters are assuming electric motors will mean quiet cars but any car whipping along on the main road is noisy, whatever its power source.

Road noise arises from three sources on vehicles:

* Propulsion noise (engine, powertrain, exhaust and intake systems)
* Tyre/road contact noise
* Aerodynamic noise

The engine noise is the dominant source at lower speeds (under 30km/h for passenger cars / under 50km/h for lorries), tyre noise dominates above that, and aerodynamic noise becomes louder as a function of the vehicle speed.

shm_uk

Chiggy wrote:

Nachimir wrote:

TNT have started using electric box trucks, and they are *spookily* quiet for something so large.

In 1911, Joseph Lucas Ltd of Birmingham, England had a fleet of electric trucks to transport goods from their factories to warehouses.

The only other traffic were cyclists and horse drawn carts. Some of the electric truck drivers tied a rattle on the L/H front wheel. The rattle was a tin can with pebbles in it.

Next January, it will be 100 years since this 'audible warning' predicament was solved.

I suppose the government will pay thousands of pounds to some committee to think of a solution to this "NEW PROBLEM"....

Yep, there's nothing new under the sun.
And half the planet still believe electric vehicles are a modern invention.

shm_uk

I really hope electric vehicles aren't mandated to generate a noise.
It would be an unbearable racket of electronically generated drones.

Internal combustion traffic noise isn't pretty, but at least it's not artificial.

snailracer

shm_uk wrote:

I really hope electric vehicles aren't mandated to generate a noise.
It would be an unbearable racket of electronically generated drones.

Internal combustion traffic noise isn't pretty, but at least it's not artificial.

Electric vehicles will soon have speakers to make noise - they should actually be safer than normal cars because the noise will be projected forward of the car, instead of backwards out of the exhaust pipe of normal cars.

Internal combustion noise is very artificial - how they sound is engineered by the design of the silencer.

unixnerd

The Cairngorm national park authority have an electric car for community use. Anyone who drives it needs to have had a driving lesson in it first so they're aware that folk can't hear it.