Sounds of a Future Landscape: The Nascent World of Electric Car Sounds

We are at a pivotal moment, one where the development of a whole new landscape of car sounds is happening all around us in a grand social experiment that will completely change the ways that our cities and towns sound. We are living through a dramatic change in the ways that urban spaces sound all because of the electric car. Electric vehicles make almost no sound while driving at speeds lower than 35 miles per hour, and to compensate they generate sound using speakers located under the chassis of the car. These sounds are used to help people perceive that the car is in motion and to help prevent accidents. The sounds electric cars make are designed not just with safety in mind but also a plethora of other goals such as brand recognition and brand identity. Electric vehicles offer a mode of sound communication that is much more like a musical instrument than that of an engine that makes an inherent sound when it operates.

Currently there is very little oversight from the government on what electric vehicles should sound like and when they should make sound at all. The majority of legislation was written before electric cars and is a holdover or adapted from legislation written about combustion engines. There is very little evidence based practices in the laws that are being implemented, instead laws are based on social attitudes about sound annoyances and the profit incentives of car companies. Car companies are designing these sounds not with the intention to minimize accidents but with the intention of designing brand recognition and to find a fashion trend for electric vehicles. Current sound legislation has more to do with sound nuisances then it does with practical sound based safety practices. Additionally there is almost no research being conducted on what makes the best sound for pedestrians to know where a nearby car is. We are at a pivotal stage to be able to conduct research about these sounds and the effects they have on our daily lives before they become further codified in law and much more difficult to change.

My research time will be divided into three stages-

Stage 1-
Develop a better understanding of the methods used by car manufacturers to design the sounds that they are making. This involves finding sound developers and interviewing them about the design process as well as getting statements from the car manufacturers that detail their goals and a better understanding of the framing they use to design their sound profiles.

Stage 2-
Developing a framework for what the current soundscape for electric cars looks like. This involves answering questions about how sound is being connected to wider social issues, such as legislation and public safety. This also involves better describing the ways these sounds are related to identity, culture, and fashion. Additionally this is the stage where I investigate the reception current sound from electric cars has on a social level.

Stage 3-
Develop recommendations for how we can take action now for the best sounding future. In which ways can we conceptualize this change in soundscapes and have the most control as individuals to the sounds we generate and how they are marketed and legislated. Rather than a future with legislation that goes against the people, we can forge a way to use it for the betterment of society. This involves finding ways to better understand the ways legislation fails and to recommend evidence based legislation solutions.

I plan to conduct the majority of the ethnographic research across the summer of 2025 with assistance from my mentor. We will work together to create a structured set of interview questions for sound designers that help me develop a sense of how the design process works. I would also like to begin collecting data on how people perceive electric car sounds and the ways the current soundscapes affect pedestrians. This will involve coming up with research questions, surveys and conducting interviews.

My predictions with the initial progress on this research is that there is a divide between how the public perceives these sounds and how the car manufacturers do. The current droning sounds of electric cars is intertwined with an aesthetic ideal of a futuristic sound and not a sound profile that is meant to be functional and relevant to today. There is evidence that the sound profiles being made are thought of as the new engine noise and that developing a new brand recognition is of the greatest importance. It is unlikely that applying a metaphor to combustion engines is useful to designing a new sound. Lastly I think that the current sound profiles of continuous humming drones are not ideal from a safety perspective as it is much more difficult to tell the relative position of a moving sound that is featureless then it is for one that has a percussive or rhythmic element. I plan to present my research in the form of a research paper about how electric car sound affects society. Starting with the history of car sound in combustion engines and how it has been designed for the last 100 years. This will help frame the discussion about how drastically different the electric car sound is in comparison to combustion engines yet how much of the original design ethos remains. I will further detail the methods that car sounds are designed and how the practices have evolved over time. I will discuss the elements of brand recognition and marketing that have been prevalent over this entire history. I will then detail the current reception and effects electric vehicle sound has had on society. This involves breaking down legislation as well as people's perception of our current soundscapes. Lastly I will detail out recommendations of what we can do next as a society to change the many issues with our current situation.

My research will be pivotal and unravel the unknown elements of electric car sound and I believe my goal of finding ways to take action will be beneficial to people. The entirety of the scope of this work is greater than that of the time I have over summer of 2025, but I hope that understanding the scope of the research in more detail is helpful to frame the small segment of this research I hope to get done.

Version 1 is 3 full pages double spaced. This allows some room for proper citations as well as some better details of the mentorship relationship.

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