Wait, aren’t electric cars quiet? Mechanically, yes. Since electric cars don’t get their power from gasoline engines, they tend to be eerily quiet. But by 2020, federal mandates will require all hybrid and electric cars to beep at low speeds for pedestrian safety. And with the number of blind and visually impaired Americans expected to double in the next 30 years, making these quiet walks a bit noisy is essential, not to mention that our brains are wired to react more quickly to sound in moments. . . The dangerous.
But for automakers, sound is more than just safety. The sonic brand is on the rise, with proper auditory aesthetics activating the brain’s amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for mood, emotions, and memory. The idea is that the right audible experience can even affect our behavior, our purchases, and our perception of taste, aroma and texture.
Automobile manufacturers have been testing musical styles, notes, and bells for their vehicles for years. They’re hiring professional musicians, psychologists, and neuroscientists to hit the perfect note with reducers, one that elicits an emotional response or reinforces a sense of luxury, security, or satisfaction.
Take Jaguar’s all-electric 2019 I-Pace car, which sounds like a spaceship, thanks to synth sound created by music producer Richard Devine. He was inspired by the capsule racers from Star Wars, as well as the sound of electric motors in modern fans.
To create the Jaguar sound, Devine went through a process of trial and error, creating two different sounds for two sets of speakers on the exterior and interior of the vehicle.
Devine also spent time developing sounds for car alerts, whether it was the sounds of the touchscreen navigation system or the sounds of the flashing lights.
Meanwhile, Harley-Davidson deviated from its distinctive rumbling engine sound when it delivered the LiveWire, its fully electric motorcycle, earlier this year. In trying to appeal to millennials, the Milwaukee company has acknowledged that the sound could disappoint Harley fans.
“You may like it or hate it, but you acknowledge it anyway,” says Steve Keller, director of Pandora’s sonic branding consultancy Studio Resonate.
Since the early 2000s, the aesthetics of sound have been increasingly important to machine design, whether in the quiet interior of a car or in the hum of a coffee maker. And throughout automotive history, people have connected sound to cars.
For example, Hyundai spent 18 months creating a corporate six-tone sequence for its cars with the goal of communicating a brand that is “essential, refined and safe.” Meanwhile, Ford hired members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to create the alerts on its 2019 Lincoln Aviator. The percussion, violin and viola bells are meant to create a sense of luxury and sanctuary. Porsche has used a “sound symposium” within the engine compartment that funnels engine noise into its cars, while Volkswagen implemented “soundaktor” audio systems to reproduce a hum produced by older vehicles with less insulation. acoustic.
Fake sounds, however, can put off consumers, automakers have found. In 2016, Volkswagen models that featured a sound actuator that simulated engine noise in the cabin faced backlash, and the consumer began weeding out “nuisance” devices, even posting before-and-after videos. A vehicle out of tune can cause the driver to overestimate the vehicle’s ability to drive through an intersection or pass a truck on a two-lane highway.
While Ford designers focused on door handles, body curve and seat feel, Palmer’s 100-person team spent a year coming up with audio aesthetics. They heard the roar of engines in the Batman movies and electronic sounds in the Blade Runner movies. They asked consumers at various stages, often acting on their opinions rather than those of seasoned car designers.
Two weeks before the L.A. launch, Palmer entered the F.I.V.E. Lab, Ford’s in-house virtual reality studio, where he put on a headset and immersed himself in a fictional world where he sat behind the wheel of the car and listened to the engine revs. It mixes a “spaceship acceleration” hum with a subtle but whiny background hum. In another virtual reality scenario, he was standing outside a cafe and a Mustang Mach-E pulled up next to him.
