[maskros]

Then you haven't heard electric cars running at low speed or put in reverse. Try to chill near any space where EVs frequent (like near a parking lot or train station with lots of traffic) and it's a constant source of artificial speaker noise:

WHIRR! WHINE! HUM! LOOK AT ME I'M ELECTRIC WITH A BIG SPEAKER! WHINE! WHIRR!

BING, BING, BING, BING, BING! LOOK OUT HERE I COME IN REVERSE! BING! (The Ioniq 5 is a particularly bad offender here ... the reversing bing can be heard multiple blocks away).

I wish EV auto-makers would turn the default warning noise levels their cars emit WAY THE FUCK DOWN because it's seriously annoying! I get not wanting to startle pedestrians, but you don't have to alert the entire neighborhood...

[nicoburns]

> I wish EV auto-makers would turn the default warning noise levels their cars emit WAY THE FUCK DOWN because it's seriously annoying! I get not wanting to startle pedestrians, but you don't have to alert the entire neighborhood...

I'm pretty sure this is a legal requirement not something the EV manufacturers are choosing to do. Although I guess this may vary by juristiction.

[ChainOfFools]

Well it can be both can't it.

Car makers, conceding that they have to incorporate some sort of non-startle noise if they're building an ev, decide to lean into it and pretty soon the pr and marketing departments are trying to come up with the most "distinctive" non-startle branding sound possible, and we're off to the juvenile arms race of noise making one-upsmanship again.

[01HNNWZ0MV43FF]

It's cause otherwise "EVs are silently running over kids becomes another "we need incandescent traffic lights because for a couple weeks in winter LEDs don't melt snow"

[lugoues]

The legislation requiring this is silly, are there any studies at all which shows it reduces harm... I couldn't find any. It would seem safer for children, and the population as a whole, if they banned vehicles which don't provide adequate front visibility. Maybe even require sensors that will prevent the vehicle from moving from a stop if something is detected in front.

[jfim]

There are blind people, who cannot know if a car is present if it's completely silent.

[maskros]

There's a spectrum between completely silent and so noisy you can clearly hear it inside a house a hundred meters down the street.

[jaredhallen]

I was part of a recent conversation about hijacking the speaker and making it play Ludacris - Move B** instead.