[nagdu] quiet cars now sounding off!

[Stepper]

Hello Creg.
Thank you for the article.
Stepper
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <craig.borne at dot.gov>
To: <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 6:14 AM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] quiet cars now sounding off!


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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