Maybe they can put one of those deer sirens on them.

LOL @ Eric.

Seriously though, this issue has gotten blown way out of proportion. You could be driving the noisiest clunker in the world and some people will STILL claim to have not seen or heard you went they stepped or pulled out in front of your car. Adding sirens and lights to emergency vehicles does not stop them from being hit by the oblivious driver.

Let's post an article that makes a little more sense, people.

The conditions that Lotus are talking about are probably when a car is stopped at a crosswalk or red light. An electric car produces no idling sound, so a blind person can't hear it.

Aside from that, maybe some very low speed situations.. This should be a fairly non-intrusive technology, as long as it is not hacked and tweaked (eh!).

That is not cool.

One of the things I like about hybrids / evs is the decreased noise.

Do we not have enough noise pollution as it is?

In the name of safety lets put klaxons and flashing lights on all vehicles.... oh wait...

well you can already get a sound masker. since you cant legally drive a skyline in california, to fool the police you can install a masker and make your car sound like a toyota or mustang...it was even on pimp my ride

Very uncool to add to noise pollution. A less noisy way of alerting the blind could involve putting weak RF transmitters in cars and giving the blind receivers. (and vibrating receivers for the blind & deaf)

Record the sample sound you want and play it. Why wouldn't the company making the car simply install an Ipod dock for car noise? It doesn't have to be so loud as to shake a window across the street, just loud enough for those around to notice. I am leaning toward James Brown doing a few of his classic lines. 'get on the good foot" for example.

Unbelievable! I agree with the above commenter that part of the appeal for me is the reduced noise. Look, I'm not an old Grandpa who doesn't appreciate a loud car, because I do, but I also like the low hum of a "green" car too!

I'll be interested to see what happens with this.

Hybrids don't make enough noise IN RELATION TO CURRENT VEHICLES. Go 10 years down the road, and most of our cars and trucks will be hybrids, all-electrics, and/or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

All of which will be much, much quieter. So are we going to want all of them artificially making as much noise as turn-of-the-century Indy 500 cars?

If nothing else, such systems should sample ambient noise levels and react according. No sense being loud if you don't have to be.

It's a good thing such electronics weren't available when automobiles first hit the road, otherwise all of today's cars would still be making the sound of horse hooves striking cobblestones, in order to "help to identify vehicle distance and speed."

i call bullsh1t.

for the past 100 years, people have been struck by cars that already emit loud noises.

sound is a form of energy and creating more of it, from an EV's perspective, for the sake of making noise is a waste. if pedestrians and the like used more energy to look both ways, then this wouldn't even be an issue.

robert novak was driving a CORVETTE (which isn't close to being a silent car) when he hit a pedestrian. case closed.

http://jalopnik.com/399126/robert-novak-hits-pedestrian-with-corvette-tries-to-flee-scene

This is totally idiotic!

Noisy GAS vehicles should be QUIETER!

Then everyone can here any vehicle coming.....

We do we assume its ok for traffic to be really noisy in the first place ALL vehicles should be quiet.

Dumb

I bet the percentage of people on cell phones, using iPods, or otherwise not paying attention that get by cars is far higher than the percentage of deaf people who get hit by cars, because deaf people have enough sense to LOOK both ways before stepping out into a road.

And blind people crossing streets can just go hang so you can enjoy the sound of birds tweeting while you drive, is that right, everyone?

If you're accustomed to crossing the street by listening for cars coming, you can hear a regular car two or three blocks away. You can't hear a hybrid running on its battery until it's too late. We already know we can't trust the drivers to do the watching out. And visually impaired people deserve to be able to get around just like everyone else.

Completely by accident it looks like I'm going to make a name for myself on here today as an advocate for blind people, and I'm really not—I'm just capable of stopping and thinking for a minute.

Everybody seems to forget something...the person driving is NOT blind and can see pedestrians just fine. Therefore, the problem is greatly exaggerated.

If I bought a car that had this feature, I would seriously have it disabled before I even left the dealership.

While I usually like the super quiet aspect of hybrids, they can be kindof dangerous for cyclists. There have been several times I have not heard the Prius cruising along beside me if I'm riding down a street with a decent amount of traffic. Responsible or not, cyclists use their ears as much as their eyes when we're changing lanes or moving through uncontrolled intersections, and when you're riding, you simply can't hear the sound of a hybrid in electric mode.

I want cars to be quieter and people to look around and get off their cell phones. Or should I put a noise maker on my bicycle so that it's louder then the Diesel pickup truck next to me?

The Doppler effect that the TIE fighter cars would make as they pass would be awesome... for about two minutes.

Wouldn't customized sounds just confuse blind people? How would they recognize what is a car and what isn't? Wouldn't public safety and the litigiousness of our culture require that the cars bellow, "WARNING! WARNING! A VEHICLE IS APPROACHING! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!" Anything less wouldn't be enough to prevent a lawsuit if we agree that cars need to announce themselves.

Jeff: You're a Treehugger, so I presume you occasionally walk places. Do you walk out in front of cars without looking, trusting drivers to see you, because they aren't blind? I presume you use the senses you have to ascertain that cars aren't coming, because that's a sensible pedestrian's responsibility, right?

For most blind people, LISTENING for cars is looking both ways before crossing the street. And if they can't HEAR the cars, then they will occasionally cross in front of a hybrid driver. Let me put this another way: Wouldn't it inconvenience you if blind people walked in front of your car more often? Wouldn't it be a hassle if you hit someone who couldn't see, and couldn't hear you coming? Paperwork, car repairs, crying children, dead people, late for work... What a drag, right?

And Dan, no one has yet seriously proposed custom sounds. That's a joke.

Fake motor sound? That seems very cheesy to me.

I'd like a nice electrical sound...and that would be more appropriate for an electric car.

Fake motor sound? That seems very cheesy to me.

I'd like a nice electrical sound...and that would be more appropriate for an electric car.

Just insist on a ghetto blaster quality sound system in the car ... then everyone will hear it. At least some of the drivers will play real music that others won't object listening to.

If one wanted a car sound to warn, then just amplifying the internal motor sound would do, and that needs no fancy tricks. An Electric should sound electric.
Adding a "car" sound from an old fashioned ICE is nuttier than a fruit bar.

It's surprising perhaps how much we actually rely on our hearing, rather than looking. It might sound (no pun) somewhat idiotic, but there probably is merit.
A friend has a Prius and she has to be extra vigilant, particularly in car parks where, ordinarliy, out of habit people would naturally move aside as they hear a car approaching from behind. Similarly one could imagine people crossing a road by what they hear, before what they see..

We DO NOT NEED noisier cars. People will just get used to the cars being quiet and look properly before they step out. It is also easy to include a proximity transponder to alert blind people. It would be IDEAL to have silent traffic. It is madness to purposely make them noisy!

I want my EV to have the sound of a cat giving birth to a supernova.

I also want it to shoot giant pink smoke rings out of a fake exhaust pipe.

AND a false gas tank to fill up on Diet Coke.

***Christmas (wink wink)

There is a much simple solution - all hybrid drivers should crank up the radio, classic and jazz FM is fine just so long as we can hear your trunk lid reverbing wit' da' double-bass.

Seriously though just as cars are finally catching up with the 20th century (never mind the 21st century) it is about time that pedestrian crossings and cars made friends. Make collision avoidance systems mandatory for all cars and sell cheap motion detectors for pedestrians especially kids and deaf/blind people to carry that can pick up motion of big hunks of metal around them - either passively or actively.

PS. If quiet cars are such a problem where are the statistics showing blind people are hit by bikes in a greater % than regular pedestrians? Isn't the real problem just crappy distracted drivers running red lights and racing around corners on red into peds. It is pure bad design that interacts peds and cars where they shouldn't. Coming from the UK I can attest that the streets in America are by and large designed entirely with cars in mind and when you're a pedestrian wanting to cross the road the safest thing you can do is stay at home or get into a car and drive across.

We ain't want any more noise pollution!!

Electric cars should emit sound at frequencies inaudible to the human ear but only audible to a specialized listening device used by the poor sighted (and also audible to dogs for good measure). That way, everyone is happy.