[Quietcars] FW: another purpose for a Sound feature

[Ken Stewart]

 Original URL:
>
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/11/07/lightning_thunder_noise/
> Lightning to thunder with speed-creep beating V8
> roar By Alun Taylor
> Published Friday 7th November 2008 11:14 GMT 'Leccy
> Tech UK electric car
> company Lightning is to fit its upcoming two-seaters
> with digitally
> recorded V8 engine noise in a bid to help
> pedestrians and other road
> users hear the otherwise silent sportscars coming.
> And it'll aid the driver too, the company told
> Register Hardware, by
> preventing accidental speeding.
> 
> Lightning's GT: now with added noise
> With no engine noise in the cabin, Lightning's
> marketing chief Fiona
> Gaiger said, drivers have no aural frame of
> reference to judge changes
> in speed.
> The GT hardtop can do 0-60 in four seconds, and its
> four wheel-mounted
> motors together deliver in the region of 700bhp.
> With all that power and
> none of the feedback you get from engine noise, it's
> surprisingly easy
> to find your foot driving the accelerator down, the
> company's engineers
> discovered.
> Gaiger maintained Lightning is the only 'leccy car
> company to have given
> this speed-creep problem not only thought but come
> up with a solution
> too.
> 
> Be-beep!
> Certainly, the issue of electric sportscars'
> near-silence has largely
> been ignored by other manufacturers during their EV
> launches, despite
> the claims made by some safety organisations that
> the road death toll
> will rocket as pedestrians and cyclists move out in
> front of electric
> vehicles they didn't hear approaching.