Did that car just bleat again?: EVs are trying some wild experiments with sound

They’re quiet; perhaps too quiet. An electric or plug-in hybrid car has no welcoming vroom, no warning growl.

There’s more than that missing too. A typical internal combustion engine (ICE) offers a range of audible cues that most drivers don’t notice, until they sputter or go silent. The healthy hum and clicks are crucial cues to performance and driveability. And they’re absent in more or less all EVs.

For all these reasons, makers of electric cars are aiming to step up the sound effects and make some noise.
In addition to pedestrian and driver safety, a big part of the mission is to find some way for electric engines to match the attractive rumble that is such a selling point, particularly in sportscars and high-performance vehicles.
Dodge’s upcoming all-electric Charger, for instance, is integrating a fake exhaust sound in an attempt to mimic the powerful vroom of its petrol-fuelled V8 Hemi high-performance engine. The company is hoping that buyers will be convinced. “We’ve changed it a hundred times,” CEO Tim Kuniskis said in a statement in March.
As with most EVs in this race, the manufactured sound will be transmitted via a set of speakers mounted in a chamber at the bottom rear of the vehicle, built to resemble an ICE exhaust.
Ferrari’s head of product marketing Emanuele Carando, meanwhile, has said that its as-yet-unnamed EV, scheduled for launch in 2025, will attempt something similar to give itself an “authentic” sound.
In many ways, the auditory cues aren’t optional. US and European Union safety norms mandate minimum sound levels for anything travelling at more than 20 kmph.
For makers of luxury EVs, this poses a whole different problem: What should this kind of car sound like, given that most buyers are now expecting a posh, almost-non-existent hum?
It is such a fine line that some companies have tried to lob the ball back to the user, offering a range of customisable bloops and bleeps. Tesla’s failed Boombox feature allowed drivers to select from a medley that included tinkling tunes like those of an ice-cream van, sounds of applause, and recordings of sheep bleating.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was not amused. In early 2022, Tesla had to issue a software update to disable the Boombox feature. Future sounds for Drive, Neutral and Reverse modes will be standardised and identifiable as vehicular or motorised noises, the software-recall notice indicated.
Tuned up
What’s next? Well, some companies are opting for a lyrical way out.
BMW has worked with the Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer (who most recently created the exquisite title theme for The Crown) to craft soundscapes for its electric cars.
“As a child, I used to wait eagerly for my parents to come home. I could hear the exact sound of my mother’s BMW and my father’s BMW and tell the two sounds apart. The sound of the car arriving always meant security for me,” Zimmer said in a statement.
The BMW IconicSounds Electric that he helped create is customisable by theme. There are softer tones in the Comfort set, sharper ones in Sport, and even violin tones in Expressive mode.
Mercedes-Benz is working with rapper Will.i.am to create an “interactive musical experience” for its new line of electric cars. The MBUX Sound Drive system will also have the ability to create playlists for each user, based on a profile put together using data on their driving habits. (We can’t wait to see how this plays out.)
Lamborghini, perhaps not wanting to be seen trying and then failing to mimic the iconic sounds of its powerful V12 engines, has announced that it will use spaceships as inspiration instead. The Lamborghini Lanzador is expected in 2028.
Hyundai, Toyota and Skoda, meanwhile, have created soundtrack suites for their EVs. These include sounds to mimic acceleration, deceleration and gear changes, routed through external speakers for the benefit of pedestrians and other motorists, and “intuitive auditory feedback”, routed through internal speakers, for the benefit of those in the vehicle.
“It wasn’t an easy task – there’s not much room beneath the bonnet and the legislation is strict,” Pavel Orendáš, a head engineer at Skoda, said in a blog post.
Bucking the trend somewhat is Stellantis. Its compact EV, the Fiat 500e, comes with an acoustic vehicle alert system (AVAS) that serenades pedestrians. The sweeping-if-brief classical composition is titled The Sound of 500 and was composed by Flavio Ibba and Marco Gualdi.
It’s certainly enough to make one stop and stare. Does it shout: Quick, there’s a car coming? Um… not really.