As a person with normal eyesight, quiet cars are great. Loud cars make me angry. But quiet cars are lethal to blind people, so fuck all cars.
As the article notes, this problem has mostly been solved by requiring AVAS in EVs sold from 2021 and onwards
Absolutely crazy to me that the UK and EU were so behind on this compared to the US. I guess the US’s traditionally good (who knows what’s happening now) disability lobby was more powerful than its “screw anyone not in a car” lobby.
The law in the US was passed in 2010, though implementation of the rule took a few years. I think Tesla were the only ones who didn’t make any noise until they were absolutely required to, probably for obvious reasons.
The EU was trailing by 4 years. With the regulation being signed into power in 2014. However, in the US from what I read, full binding, in detail, implementation also took until 2020, from what I understand the transition period in the EU was 5 years so it should have been obligatory from 2019 onwards.
Quiet electric cars are firearms with silencers attached so let’s build out sidewalks, bike lanes, and public transit.
I thought EV already made a low humming sound when the car is moving(the sound of the motor), and then some of the manufacturer artificially turn it into a TIE fighter by adding louder noise when its moving. And recent ICE car are already very quiet to the point that the noise you hear is mostly the tyre sound on high speed, when they simply cruising at 20-30kmph it’s very quiet. I don’t know what more could people possibly want.
Simple fix to this without continuing to use shitty ICE vehicles. Make em make some noise.
Obviously the solution is walkable cities, reduced dependency on cars and car culture, mass transit, trains, busses, et cetera. But in the interim, make em make noise. Whatever the car equivalent to a baseball card in the spokes is
This is already a thing and has been for a while, there’s external speakers that play sounds for exactly this reason, so they’d just need to turn it up more.
They’re already pretty loud. And the tone they emit is so much more ear piercing than the low rumble of a (normal) gas engine.
It’s pretty easy to hear an EV inside, even with all the other noises of a city.
The heaven sound?
My friends EV is about as loud as my tiny ICE vehicle. It also sounds like a space ship 🛸 which gives me a chuckle every time.
People having to breath in the toxic filth from your ICE vehicle would rather be next to an EV though.
You going to buy me one? That’s really nice of you pal! Honestly, never underestimate the generosity of internet strangers 🥹
But seriously, I want to get one and almost can since I can use a lease service through my employer but I’m expecting a big tax bill this year and don’t want to take on financial obligations without knowing what that’ll be.
So for now the “toxic filth” from my 1000cc 3-cyl engine stays.
No I am not, just stating what your ICE vehicle does to others. Your ability to afford to get an alternative or not doesn’t change that.
Ok, so that literally does more harm than good.
When I try to argue the benefits of changing to EV vehicles people point out schmucks like you to why they don’t have to change from their big gas guzzling V8. “If it’s anything short of complete perfection I’ll still get Jiral’s snide comments. Greenies will never stop attacking me so why change!” (obviously paraphrasing).
Sometimes minimising harm is a good first step to actually change.
Acknowledging the problem shouldn’t be considered being “schmuck”. I am aware that the whole world can’t change overnight and also that it is not feasible or even reasonable to just throw away cars well before their time. Doesn’t change that I can’t wait for the day when combustion engines have become a rarity on city streets because their impact is indeed terrible on local pollution and lung health of locals.
If you are just not considering EVs to “own the libs” that is a choice. If you stick with a perfectly fine car until you can afford to switch it is something entirely different.
well yes, for deaf people, noisy cars are bad for everyone and all cars kill people all the time.
I’ve found that, at least in europe, teslas are a major issue for this reason.
All other electric vehicles, even the cheap chinese ones, make some sort of noise, like ufos hovering or something. Yet teslas are mostly just silent, they don’t make the noise.
I’m not even deaf and I’ve gotten close to getting run over by various teslas, but no other brand of cars (electric or ICE) had this issue.
Could it be that those Teslas predate the requirement to have AVAS?
Yeah I believe 2021 this was enforced. Could be older teslas
It’s also dangerous for people who can see. The more senses you can bring to bear on danger, the better.
