Electric car sound design—The paradox of almost unlimited freedom

Abstract

Electric and hybrid cars are relatively silent at low speeds. Therefore sound designers have an almost unlimited freedom regarding the electric and hybrid car indoor sound design. The extensive experiences with Active Sound Design (ASD) increases our abilities. However at least in a very near future, customer expectations are based on our long term experience with vehicle sounds with conventional engines. This point leads the designers to design new car sounds which have extensive similarities with the combustion engine car sounds. Some car manufacturers try to break this trend designing extraordinary sounds. But most of these ideas are based on previous film sound design examples and therefore the originality is limited. At the same time, the reaction of the customers to such kind of sounds is not very positive. Another important point is that there are already regulations, which define the requirements for the Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems (AVAS), for the exterior sound of electric and hybrid cars. In some cases, the sound of AVAS interacts with the interior sound. In this talk, the various aspects of future electric car sound design will be discussed according to our previous investigations.