[nagdu] quiet cars now sounding off!

[craig.borne at dot.gov]

Lotus Makes Hybrids Sound Like Real Cars

By Stuart Schwartzapfel 
Email
August 06, 2008 | 3:06:57 PMCategories: 
Electric Vehicles, 
Hybrids, 
Safety   

Prius_bike  

Hybrids are the greatest. They pollute less and consume less than regular cars and save you boatloads of money at the pump. But activists and legislators
consider them silent killers that prey on blind people who never hear 'em coming. 

Full Hybrids
 like the ubiquitous Toyota Prius run only on electricity at low speeds, emitting no more than a whine around town. That's great for lowering 
noise-vibration harshness
 and making drivers feel like George Jetson, but it's a big problem for the blind -- and pedestrians, and cyclists, and people who simply don't pay attention
-- who rely on the familiar rumble of internal combustion to know what's coming down the pike. 

The engineers at Lotus, a company 
way into green
 these days, have a solution. 

Lotus took a bone-stock Prius and outfitted it with a waterproof speaker near the radiator that blares simulated yet realistic engine sounds to let pedestrians
-- those who don't have earbuds crammed into their ears, anyway -- know to watch out. "Our advanced external sound synthesis technology increases pedestrian
safety, while retaining the car's environmental benefits," says Mike Kimberley, CEO of Group Lotus. 

The system uses a speed sensor on the accelerator to control the vroom-vroom sound. You only hear it as the car approaches, and it cuts out entirely when
the car's engine takes over at higher speeds. It's all automated and Lotus says the driver hears almost nothing. 

Considering all of the emerging vehicle technology out there, Lotus could have sunk its R&D dollars into just about anything. We've gotta ask what prompted
this particular investment -- which by the way, comes on the heels of a similar gadget 
created by two Stanford University students
. It's not as if there's been a lot of Priuses (
Priora
?) mowing down the blind. 

Maybe it's because lawmakers decided in April that the threat of just such an epidemic is so great 
Something Must Be Done
. If the legislation pending before Congress passes, the Transportation Department will spend two years studying the problem before developing safety standards.
Automakers would have two years after that to comply, giving Lotus a big market for its product.

"We hope that legislators introduce minimum noise requirements for vehicles to encourage the adoption of technologies, such as ours, which will ultimately
increase pedestrian safety," Kimberley says.

Lotus is collaborating with the 
Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
 and the 
Guide Dogs for the Blind Association
 to develop their system. We want ours to sound like the Cosworth engine in the 
Lotus 49.


Craig Borne
NHTSA/DOT
(202) 493-0627 
craig.borne at dot.gov
 
-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Stepper
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 8:31 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: [nagdu] quiet cars now sounding off!

Hi to all Listters.
On Sunday last the 16th of October my son called me and told me that on one of the half hour national car magazine TV program he saw the following that the program spent one of its three segments on.
My son said the EU auto maker Lodess that also makes high performance race cars announced the following.
They now have a add on motor sound that relates to the speed of the engine.
This unit fits behind the grill.
They said it wasn't hard to install.
That they will have it ready soon for the after market of quiet cars and trucks.
This is great news.
I know I as a nfb member have been working hard on this issue for a long time with many others.
We have gone from no one wanting, or willing to listen to we the blind, to a very propitious auto maker being the first with a device we can hear.
The nfb committee on quiet cars asked if they could read a letter I wrote about the quiet car issue to a U.N committee this coming spring in Geneva Switzerland. 
What a honor!
"We can do together what we can't do alone."
Stepper
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