Editorial Notes

Dear Reader,

Not long after the United States passed its monumental climate bill that will, in the coming years, strongly bend the future toward electric vehicles, I was dining alfresco at a restaurant adjacent to a busy city street. It was nice to be outside despite the noise and noxious fumes coming from the slow-moving traffic near my table. I smiled thinking about how the scene will be different in the not very distant future as electric vehicles displace cars with combustion engines. The air will be clean, and I will comfortably be heard at my table without having to shout.

But wait. Each of those electric vehicles slowly driving by my table of the future will be equipped with a pedestrian warning system designed to emit noise. Electric vehicles operate in near silence when driven at speeds below 18.5 mph and can be a danger to pedestrians without the mandated acoustic vehicle alerting system. NHTSA has established a minimum sound standard for hybrids and EVs that governs the decibel level, pitch and morphology of the warning signals, but has given carmakers considerable latitude to uniquely brand their alerts, a different sound for each model vehicle.

Here are some questions for EV developers. Have you considered what fleets of EVs will do to a city's soundscape as each vehicle emits its individual branded alert that's loud enough to be heard above the city's ambient noise? Will it be an improvement compared with today? Or will it turn the city's soundscape into a discordant hellscape?

Sincerely Yours,

Paul Hansen

Editor

figure 1