Why Does Silence Kill ?
Electric cars are extremely quiet. The only sounds they make are from the tires, the air, and occasionally from the high-pitched whine of the electronics. Car lovers love this silence. However, distracted pedestrians often rely on the sound of vehicles to notice their presence. This is even more true in case of the blind.
To address this challenge, manufacturers thought of adding artificial sound to electric cars which would also be a wonderful branding opportunity, so that each model could have a unique sound.
From ‘throaty growls’ to the sound of tweeting birds, manufacturers came up with several ideas. Those who wanted a differentiation ruled, yet everyone agreed that standardization is a must to make it easy to determine that the sound is coming from an automobile, to identify its location, direction and speed.
After years of trying to make cars run silently, who would have thought that brands would spend years of efforts and millions of dollars to add artificial sound ?
Well, sometimes silence does kill, doesn’t it ?
