The Economist has a story about a bill going through US Congress about the noise (or lack thereof) made by electric and some hybrid cars. For years, I’ve pretty much predicted this development. Only I meant it in a tongue-in-cheek way.
“Cars are getting quieter and quieter,” I’ve been heard to say, “And electric and hybrid cars promise to be quieter still. I’ll bet that someday, people will realise that these quiet cars are actually more dangerous than traditional, noisy cars with internal combustion engines, and at that point laws will be passed requiring cars to make a noise.”
“There’s already legislation that requires indicators to make a ‘tick-tock’ sound, since we did away with the relays that used to make the sound we associate with indicators. Cheap cars tend to make a shitty-sounding, very-obviously-synthesised sound. So, we can assume that cheap cars in the future will make the cheapest-sounding ‘engine’ sounds. You’ll hear them coming with a uniform ‘brum-brum-brum-brum-brum’ sound, or a grating ‘bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’.”
“But cars are more than a means of transport; they’re a status symbol, and we already see people tricking out their wheels with glowy lights and things that make their exhaust pipes louder and fake spoilers. And as time goes on, the technology to make higher-quality synthesised sounds will make it into the cheap, chavvy cars. And what’ll happen when the cheap, chavvy cars get sold, with sophisticated built-in synthesisers? The same thing that happened when the cheap mobile phones became capable of playing sophisticated audio formats: custom ringtones.”
“Someday, within my lifetime, somebody will be run over by a car that sounds like Crazy Frog. And it will be both sad and hilarious in equal measure.”
Something we didn’t see coming a decade ago.