Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/19/amazon-electric-vehicle-makes-an-unpleasant-sound.html
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6 Likes
If I were driving, it would be about 5 minutes before the speaker suddenly and inexplicably suffered some sort of mechanical failure.
25 Likes
I had a PC at work once that 1) had a really bad voice sampled BIOS warning for things like no keyboard or the like and 2) only recognized PS2 keyboards for that same check ignoring the well connected and functional USB keyboard.
It suddenly had that piezoelectric sound source excised with players.
19 Likes
I’ll never understand why it is a problem if an electric car does not make any sound. I mean, watch where you are going and don’t expect other road users to jump out of your way…
2 Likes
Because we all have off days and we shouldn’t die as a result? 
30 Likes
Because almost all other road vehicles do? Heck, even a horse and buggy you’ll hear the hooves coming.
11 Likes
Blind people. People who are hard of hearing. People who use their ears. Your eye can actually deceive you. It’s called blind bias where if you don’t expect to see something, some times your brain will “skip” noticing it.
That music sounds like the new age crap we piped in to the Cosmosphere gift shop.
30 Likes
14 Likes
I didn’t find that noise especially unpleasant or inappropriate.
However of it’s going to make a noise other than the noises from the motor and tyres, I think it should be a skeuomorphic V8 burble.
Y’know the way the camera on your phone makes a click like an old school camera?
Like that. Only a V8.
25 Likes
11 Likes
In addition to the reasons others have listed add cyclists you are coming up behind and blind spots caused by other objects. If your design relies on human perfection, it is a bad design.
15 Likes
That or the sound of a single cylinder motorcycle, very difficult to ignore.
8 Likes
I’ll never understand why it is a problem if an electric car does not make any sound. I mean, watch where you are going and don’t expect other road users to jump out of your way…
Like so many other things (-cough-masks-cough-) a very minor inconvenience probably represents at least one life saved. If having an artificial noise added to an electric motor is necessary for our monkey brains to hear “noise! caution!” that seems worthwhile.
13 Likes
It doesn’t need to be obnoxious at all.
I just think that if we’re going to have electric vehicles make an artificial noise it should be a nice noise, and it should be vehicle related noise.
Unless of course this turns out to be a bad idea in practice and people don’t pay attention to such noises. Then by all means go with an obnoxious noise.
7 Likes
Is it plausible that the van’s designed so that it can only be heard from the outside?
4 Likes
These things should play ice cream truck music
20 Likes
Actually, most internal combustion engine cars nowadays are completely silent, the only noise they make is tire noise. Of course not counting sports cars that are made deliberately noisy via specially tuned exhaust systems meant to highlight the engine sound. Otherwise, your average sedan, economy cars, vans, even pickup trucks, make little to no noise at city driving speeds. Even if you stand by a highway where cars are going 50+ mph, all you hear is whooshing from tires, punctuated now and then when an older car / piece of crap and/or intentionally loud car goes by.
Also, most of the sound emitted by a car and especially motorcycles comes from the REAR of the vehicle, so as far as safety is concerned, the engine noise has zero safety effect when the vehicle is coming at you. Which is why the “loud pipes saves lives” mantra repeated by bikers is mostly bullshit justification for having cool sounding (to the owners) open exhausts.
You know what saves lives? Bright lights.
8 Likes
Sorry, but… Drivers of electric vehicles (or any other car…) should watch where the f*** they are going, even if their vehicle does not make any sound. Even if it was invisible, you drive the death machine, you watch where you go.
4 Likes
“it is a good idea” is it? How about not fucking driving into pedestrians? Has the car industry tried that fucking good idea?
Bollocks to the victim blaming from the fucking murderous car industry.
9 Likes
A former job moved into a new building with an open work area filled with cubicles.
There was a speaker directly over my cube that played Muzak all day long.
One day, someone stood on my desk, lifted the acoustic tile, and yanked the wire out of the speaker.
8 Likes
