(2 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)
Loading ...Lotus and Harman to Make Hybrid Cars Louder
Posted on April 19, 2009
Filed Under General News, Prototypes, Research | Leave a Comment
A while back, there was some buzz about how hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius are silent and therefore dangerous to pedestrians, who can’t hear them coming as well as regular gasoline or diesel-powered cars.
To combat this problem, Lotus Cars and Harman have joined forces to create Electronic Sound Synthesis (ESS), a technology with two purposes: one, to funnel fake engine nose outside the car using front and rear-mounted speakers, so that people on foot can hear it when it’s approaching at low speeds, and two, to generate fake engine noise inside the car through the vehicle’s in-car entertainment system, in order to make it sound more like a regular vehicle when accelerating.
The agreement will also let the two companies work together in the other direction and further develop Lotus’s Road Noise Cancellation and Engine Order Cancellation technologies to quiet down cabin noise. All of this sounds like it adds up to a net result of zero, but I’ll take their word for it.
SOURCE: GearLog
Electric, Plug-In Hybrids Ready to Hit the Streets
Mercedes Confirms Plan for Diesel-Hybrid E-Class
Are Hybrid and Electric Cars Too Quiet?
Hearing Hybrids: A Different Kind of Noise Problem
Bill Will Study How to Make Hybrids Safe for the Blind
Comments
Translator
Leave a Reply