Lotus and Harman Make Green Cars Purr
Hybrid and electric vehicles are very quiet compared to traditional gasoline vehicles, and this raises two problems: first, there are traffic safety experts worried that pedestrians won’t be able to hear the vehicles coming and try to cross the street when a hybrid is coming around a corner; and second, there are lots of people who yearn for the growl of an engine as they drive. How does one solve these problems? Well, automaker Lotus and Harman, a speaker and sound systems manufacturer, are teaming up to tackle the issue.
The planned solution is called Electronic Sound Synthesis (ESS). The idea is to have speakers mounted in the front and rear bumpers that will provide engine noise to those outside the vehicle and to have the car’s cabin sound system reproduce engine noise. This system may sound like more an exercise in engineering than one in practicality, but the results of the companies’ efforts will have many applications. For example, by studiously anayzing the acoustic properties of a car’s cabin, Lotus will be able to develop better noise-cancelling materials for their traditional gasoline vehicles, and Harman will be better able to produce vehicle sound systems.
Will ESS ever make it to vehicles on the road? That depends on one major thing: government legislation. Even if Lotus and Harman come up with an incredibly elegant system, it will still cost extra to install and drive up the price of vehicles. If there is no legislative impetus to provide this service, then buyers will likely avoid those vehicles. Also, the current state of hybrid and electric vehicles makes the problem a bit of a non-issue at the moment. Once hybrids and electrics gain further market penetration, the issue of pedestrian safety will have to be addressed, but it isn’t a wide enough problem to gain a lot of support right now.The Freshman full
