Electric vehicles don’t need to sound like the future—even if they are the future
If you’ve ever experienced the strange silence of an electric vehicle passing by, you know that EVs don’t make much noise—or at least, they don’t have to. They don’t have gas-powered engines or transmissions that result in a classic car sound. Still, there’s an entire industry devoted to ensuring EVs do sound like something, primarily for safety reasons. After all, pedestrians rely on their ability to hear a car coming—it’s why studies suggest that EVs and hybrids are twice as likely to hit pedestrians as gas cars. It’s also why the U.S. and other nations are mandating that all EVs have an acoustic vehicle alerting system (AVAS).
As you can imagine, some carmakers have viewed such mandates as an opportunity to get creative with the sounds their electric vehicles make. The Porsche Taycan has an attention-grabbing AVAS sound that’s meant to evoke a premium and future-forward sensibility, while the Fisker Karma seems to emit an epic heavy-metal power chord. Other brands like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Bolt, have opted for high-pitched, UFO-like sound options. And I understand why: Driving a car that sounds futuristic or unique can feel cool. Plus, it allows carmakers to make their EV sound as branded as their cars—memorable like an ad jingle. But this thinking needs to evolve.
Even as political headwinds change and carmakers slow their EV ambitions in a cooling market, it’s clear that electric vehicles are the future. But I’m increasingly convinced that it shouldn’t sound like “the future.” Instead, carmakers need to strike a balance—not just to serve the tastes of car owners but for a host of health and ecological reasons. As the world becomes increasingly filled with tech-powered products and experiences—each with their own attention-getting artificial sounds—it’s important that at least car sounds feel rooted in the real world and, frankly, a little more “ordinary” than some would like.
The sound of EVs matters
It might be weird to hear this from a sonic branding designer, but I’m highly skeptical (or even critical) of companies that see AVAS sounds as a key branding opportunity—as a way to create a highly distinctive brand sound that stands out in the world. Not only does this approach fail to prioritize functional, human-centered needs (for low-vision or blind pedestrians, in particular), but drivers don’t even want it. When we recently polled drivers as part of a detailed sonic branding study, they said they preferred that their electric vehicles use non-tonal AVAS sounds rather than something more futuristic and tonally distinctive.
Then there are the broader issues affected by AVAS sounds—noise pollution is a costly problem, with transportation sounds (road traffic in particular) causing 80% of noise pollution in cities. Reports link noise pollution to everything from poor cardiovascular health to various ailments like speech interference, hearing loss, sleep disruption, and lost productivity. Wildlife health and mating cycles are also disrupted by it, leading to reduced biodiversity. With studies suggesting that by 2050 the majority of cars will be electric, it’s easy to see why it might be time to start taking a hard look at curbing some AVAS approaches.
I appreciate that we live in a culture that resists anything that could be perceived as a restriction on freedoms. Regulations are also seen as a barrier to innovation. And since it’s an election year, EVs have become a hot button political issue, making it hard to discuss them without snowballing into contentious climate and environmental debates happening across industries.
For better or worse, the sounds cars make also have strong cultural and emotional ties to power and strength—particularly with heavyweight vehicles, trucks, and performance vehicles. Automotive brands are still grappling with how to honor these traditional characteristics in healthy ways while pivoting to an EV future. The last thing they want is a more limited set of tools to spark connection with drivers.
But even with some sonic restrictions, there’s still plenty of room to be inventive and differentiate.It’s not that AVAS sounds necessarily need to be entirely uniform—being able to distinguish vehicles from one another based on distinct AVAS sounds can help pedestrians anyway. Too much uniformity could create a wash of noise if many vehicles are on the road together, making it harder for pedestrians (especially blind ones) to instinctively understand which cars are closer or further away, and whether something is more or less an immediate threat and what needs greater attention or higher alert. Instead, carmakers need to embrace the creative challenge—over-indexing on function and integration within the environmental soundscape while still offering something sonically pleasing.
A sonic standard for electric vehicles
The responsibility falls on both designers and automakers to set a better sonic standard. Influence and evolution certainly come from the top, but it’s also a dialogue between brands and the designers they partner with. That means helping automakers make decisions that will boost the business, appeal to consumers, communicate the brand’s ideals, and support the functional product experience without hurting the everyday experience in our cities and towns.
There is a lot of value in arriving at a shared set of design principles, regardless of whether they become mandated regulations. For example, if all automakers agreed to design their AVAS sounds within a limited set of musical keys that all work harmoniously together—that could be a less restrictive way of addressing the issue and allowing for both tonal and non-tonal sounds to work in concert with one another more effectively. It would also still allow for some creative design choices and brand distinction, while reducing the potential for provoking anxiety in pedestrians or exacerbating noise pollution.
In any case, interior car sounds, not exterior ones, are the place to really create something distinctive that can stand out. Taking into account how the interior is becoming a more multisensory experience—with the dashboard as an LED display and interior lighting that can change color and intensity for different drive modes—it has countless sonic branding opportunities for brands and designers looking to tap into the power of sound. By thinking about the EV’s entire sound experience holistically, designers put less onus on the AVAS to carry the weight of an “ownable” brand experience.
The first step, though, is getting automakers onboard with a more “ordinary” approach—building a new ecosystem of EV sounds that people can rely on for their health and safety. As electric vehicles replace gas-powered ones, it’s sure to transform how we live our daily lives—in both obvious and unanticipated ways. For the good of drivers, pedestrians, and automakers, sound can’t be treated as an afterthought. Let’s take that opportunity and do things right.
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