One major issue with the electric vehicles (EVs) being highlighted time and again is that they are silent! While this sounds (no pun here) desirable for the vehicle owners, it does not turn out to be very practical on the roads, where such vehicles have to come to terms with pedestrians.
Auto majors have been trying to solve this issue in their own ways. Get this, Mercedes-AMG recently joined hands with American rock band Linkin Park as a solution. What is it? The band will now come up with a sound that will be used in electric makes of Mercedes-AMG at slow speeds.
No kidding! The announcement was made by Mercedes executives at the Geneva Motor Show and Mercedes-AMG is not the only maker trying to come up with such a way of alerting the pedestrians. Auto giants like Nissan, Chevrolet, Renault, Citroen, Jaguar and even Harley-Davidson are working towards this.
Chevy Bolt?(Representative Image: Chevrolet)?
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Rightly so, because regulations have been set around this in many countries already employing electric vehicles on the roads. The European Union has a new regulation, mandating all new electric and hybrid vehicles to give a sound warning to pedestrians by 2021. A similar mandate has been set up in the US, with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration instructing all electric vehicles (and hybrids) to emit a sound while moving up to 18.6 mph by September 2020.
The regulations are there for a reason. While the world is accustomed to IC engine vehicle making considerable noise to announce their arrival, this is not the case with electric vehicles. They are silent, almost unnoticeable,?at lower speeds and hence are potentially dangerous for pedestrians.
Mercedes-Benz EQC (Representative Image: Reuters)
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So how the auto makers are reacting?
Almost all the companies involved with the production of EVs are in the process of developing sounds that these Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) will use at different speeds. The sounds will be emitted loud and clear through external, waterproof speakers.
Check out some of the sounds in production by the auto makers for their EVs. Some are mechanical, some are more melancholy. But yes, all of them are pretty exciting to be coming out of a moving vehicle.
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