The author in the video kind of dismisses EVs saying that at speed there's not much of a difference, but one of the things I definitely noticed when visiting Bergen was how damn quiet the city was because almost everyone was driving EVs. It had a noticeably positive effect on me.
I was very excited about EVs reducing the noise level in my city. Until I realized that most of the noise of a modern car actually comes from the tires. There sin't much difference between a modern non-EV car and an EV, sadly.
At highway speeds there might not be much difference in noise levels, but there's a huge difference on city streets. In cities in with particularly noisy vehicles such as motorcycles, diesel buses, etc, electrification makes a huge difference.
With EVs slowly becoming more dominant in central London (most taxis, and many buses and delivery vans are electric now), I've several times had the slightly eerie (but happy) experience of being at busy intersections and noticing that it was unusually quiet. Then looking around and seeing that every vehicle waiting at the intersection was electric or plug-in hybrid.
> "Of course they have to stop ~20 minutes to recharge instead of just turning back."
London's electric buses (mostly UK-built bus bodies with BYD drivetrains and batteries) have large enough battery packs for them to run all day without charging. They get recharged overnight, when electricity is cheap, while parked in the bus depots.
As of March, London had 785 fully electric buses in service, out of a total fleet of about 9000. The fleet is planned to be fully electric by 2034, which could be brought forward subject to additional funding.
It will be interesting to see if they stick with the overnight-charging model or whether charging while in service will make sense on some routes.
London's hybrid buses are also pretty good for noise (not as good as electric, but a lot better than direct diesel propulsion). No loud bursts of noise when accelerating.
Small?! The majority of London buses are double-deckers, around 11 meters in length with capacities up to 87 passengers (combined seating + standing). Perhaps not the world's largest buses, but I certainly wouldn't call them small!
> "Do you have a source that they run the entire day with no charging?"
Here's an old press release from when they were first introduced: "The buses are equipped with BYD-designed and built Iron-Phosphate batteries, delivering 345 kWh of power ... The batteries can power the bus for over 24 hours and up to 190 miles of typical urban driving on the service routes with a single daily recharging requiring only four hours."
(The reality is that on many central London bus routes, there just isn't anywhere where they could stop for an extended period for recharging. But as more electric buses expand to suburban routes, maybe that will be less of an issue)
London can’t use multi-segment articulated buses (“bendy buses”) due to street size and layout constraints. Basically they’re too long to fit in many places they need to go. They did actually experiment with them on a few routes some years ago, but they were withdrawn after a year or two.
But that doesn’t make London buses small, because they’re double-deckers. Instead of increasing the length, they increase the height.
In any case, bus size is a red herring when it comes to electrification. A larger bus simply gives you more space to install larger batteries, provided you don’t exceed class/axle weight limits etc. Being longer and having more axles, an articulated bus should be even easier to electrify than a double decker!
London has been operating electric buses for almost 10 years now and has a fleet of nearly 800 units. If they weren’t performing to expectations, I’m sure we would have heard about it and they wouldn’t keep buying them!
Look, I've been to London and I've been to Sweden. Your busses are smaller.
Being double decker means nothing when almost nobody wants to bother to go up. But even then. They're still smaller.
> London has been operating electric buses for almost 10 years now and has a fleet of nearly 800 units. If they weren’t performing to expectations, I’m sure we would have heard about it and they wouldn’t keep buying them!
Yes, public administrations are known to run at maximum efficiency and never let any other considerations to decide what to buy.
Like here in sweden they're obviously corrupt when deciding what to buy for public transport.
If one bus means 10 cars and motorcycles stay off the road, the extra loud noise is probably worth it. IMO electric buses are a low priority task for most cities.
Really depends on the speeds. At slower speeds in residential areas the difference is noticeable, especially when cars stop and accelerate again. On larger faster roads not so much.
Indeed, the video says that: the tire noise for ICEs becomes louder than the engine at about 50 kmph. This means that for speeds slower than that, the more important component is the noise of the engine.
That's probably for a constant speed, though. ICE cars are loudest when they are accelerating. On many cars the engine is louder than the tires if you're floor the accelerator no matter what speed.
If you're in the UK, most of the noise comes from "the kids" buying cheap compact cars (Fiat 500s seem popular) and modifying the exhaust to sound like a very, very poor man's Ferrari, or on Sundays, motorbikes.
That, and I've noticed that most diesel exhaust smell seems to come from a small number of vehicles: old VW TDIs, illegally modified taxis, and old buses.
IME you're right, but the cars we hear in a city are the outliers, not a nice modern quiet car. It definitely, in my experience, reduces overall noise to have a lot of electric vehicles.
I wonder if there are low noise tire tread designs? Of course there are probably trade offs. Snow tires are known to be louder than the tires you use in climates that don’t get snow.
Studded snow tires are louder than other tires, snow tires without studs are softer than normal tires so less noise. Modern snow tires without studs are surprisingly good on ice, which is the only place studded tires can compete.
Noise levels is one of the things tires are rated by, but a quiet tire would normally require a softer compound and softer compound wears out faster than harder tires
It's so weird that the 'noise' of petrol cars is considered a safety feature. I've heard from the older generation "Yeah but EVs don't make noise which makes them extremely dangerous. Could easily kill a child or old woman who steps out on to a road because they don't hear a car coming".
It must be the same group of people with their anecdotes about seatbelts and airbags making cars more dangerous.
I'm an EV fan, but lower noise levels makes them more dangerous, not less, at least to the people they can potentially hit (of course for people living next to roads, noise is more hazardous from a more general health point of view). Cars are killer machines and stuff like seatbelts and airbags protect passengers but not pedestrians or cyclists hit by the car. So if you are a pedestrian or cyclist, then having the ability to hear the car is really great.
It's asking the outside people to shoulder the responsibility of avoiding the killer machine. I'd rather have quiet cars and much harsher crackdowns on drivers that use them in ways that jeopardy the lives of others. There are many things drivers can do to reduce the hazard, such as slowing down, buying smaller vehicles, using cars that don't isolate outside noise, only driving when in good mental condition, etc.
It's crazy to me that we allow cars that isolate their cockpit more and more from their surroundings (quiet, small windows, high up from the ground) and instead ask the surroundings to avoid the danger.
I know, ultimately it is each person's own responsibility to avoid death, and it might make sense for the legal system to reflect that. But we don't have these laws with other dangerous things ("it's okay to practise throwing molotov cocktails in public squares, as long as you wear bright clothing so people know to keep their distance"), so cars are sort of an outlier.
> I'd rather have quiet cars and much harsher crackdowns on drivers that use them in ways that jeopardy the lives of others. There are many things drivers can do to reduce the hazard, such as slowing down, buying smaller vehicles, using cars that don't isolate outside noise, only driving when in good mental condition, etc.
I get what you're saying, but IMO, that just wouldn't work well.
If you want a better system, it's better to make as many changes as possible to the system so that problems are impossible and/or unlikely.
Personal responsibility will always have it's place, but it'll never be particularly reliable.
> It's crazy to me that we allow cars that isolate their cockpit more and more from their surroundings (quiet, small windows, high up from the ground) and instead ask the surroundings to avoid the danger.
Being quiet and high aren't issues here. Drivers aren't going to hear pedestrians - not at 30 mph. And I've never been in a vehicle that had windows that I felt affected my awareness, aside from the rear window of the Prius.
> I know, ultimately it is each person's own responsibility to avoid death, and it might make sense for the legal system to reflect that. But we don't have these laws with other dangerous things
Sure, but that's because there's enormous social utility in allowing people to drive cars. If there was a similar utility in letting people throw molotov cocktails, then there'd probably be some sort of dispensation to do just what you suggest.
> If you want a better system, it's better to make as many changes as possible to the system so that problems are impossible and/or unlikely.
I disagree with this premise.
If you want to make a system better, you need to enable as many information flows as possible, shorten feedback loops, etc. The classic Meadows leverage points. The proposal of making cars noisy has the opposite effect, by sweeping problems under the rug.
Just "doing as many things as possible" is a great way to paint oneself into a local optimum.
The flipside of that is that pedestrian deaths are increasing. And I think this is because a lot of them are distracted (many just cross the road while on their phones, and some have over-ear headphones), and some just think "well, the car has to stop, so I'll step out". It's not just car drivers who are at fault - I've had some crazy near-misses with arrogant pedestrians, and sometimes when I've been on my motorbike which is not quiet, and also I would pay quite a price for an accident, even if with a pedestrian or trying to avoid one.
> It's asking the outside people to shoulder the responsibility of avoiding the killer machine.
It's adding a layer of redundancy. The driver needs to pay attention but should that fail, hopefully the car noise will alert the pedestrian, who should also be aware that a car is nearby.
Same logic created the "Loud pipes save lives!" mantra among motorcyclists despite the fact that there's no evidence to support this. By the time a car driver hears the bike it's already too late to avoid an accident.
I ride a bike. I don’t ride a loud bike: it’s still within Australian limits for sale, but it has some volume, and a little bit of lower end thump.
Two bikes before that I rode a 250cc four cylinder bike, that did up to 18,000 RPM. It, again, was within Australian limits, although honestly not by much.
In the middle of those two, I rode a 600cc bike that was significantly quieter than either of those.
My riding remained mostly the same, but one of the three I had significantly more people changing lanes while I was quite literally right beside them.
I don’t believe that ridiculous straight through drag pipes on high displacement twin engines are necessary, but being as loud as another car absolutely saves lives.
Anecdata here - I have had quiet and loud bikes, and the loud ones mean you're much less likely to get 'lane changed' on. Drivers are generally pretty ignorant of what's around them, and it's always the biker that pays the price if there is an accident. I generally don't put myself in harm's way, but there are always times when you have to be in a danger zone. And a loud bike is noticed more, in my experience.
They are right, though. After years of (probably subconscious) conditioning I have a "quiet => safe" condition imprinted very deeply. Especially on smaller streets in quieter neighborhoods.
Precisely (though "walking" is a better word than "jumping"). I need to put in a conscious effort to actually look, especially when I'm lost in thought. (The fact that in some places there is no clear visual distinction between the street and the pavement does not help, either.)
People here tend to walk in middle of the road in smaller one-way streets and move aside when they hear engine noise. More then once I've been startled by electric cars quietly creeping behind me.
> must be the same group of people with their anecdotes about seatbelts and airbags making cars more dangerous.
I don't think it has to be, it is definitely a safety feature that they make a noise, but these people try to justify burning petrol to do this passively "positive" thing
> It's so weird that the 'noise' of petrol cars is considered a safety feature. I've heard from the older generation "Yeah but EVs don't make noise which makes them extremely dangerous.
It's enough of an issue that early Priuses beeped while backing up.
I'm a look both ways kind of person, so I don't really "get" it, but I can also understand that not everyone prioritizes situational awareness.
Having started cycling recently I think people use sound to cross more than you expect. I've had people step into my path multiple times without looking purely because they can't hear me.
In Germany some organizations advocating for visually impaired people (rightfully) complained about this. Apparently the problem is that the „sounds“ EVs play to mimic other vehicles at low speed are too different from other vehicles, and that they stop playing them to early when reaching a certain velocity.
A while ago someone was driving my hybrid car towards me in electric mode. They passed an older lady going in the same direction driving ~10KM/h (6MPH), until the elderly lady made an abrupt 90 degree right turn and walked into the rear door. I guess there is something to say for modern EVs making some kind of artificial zooming noise, though I'm not sure it would have helped this lady as the car was already making noise on the cobblestones.
Not so sure. It might help children but old people are just old and deaf. When they stop in the middle of the path and people ask them politely if they can leave room at normal voice level they typically do not hear it and you end up shooting at them so they can notice you are here trying to pass and move aside.
As a bicyclist, the noise cars make is clearly a safety feature for me. The noise could likely be less and still serve that function adequately, but “silent” cars would be a nightmare.
Yeah. The issue in itself has little merit, because cyclists are also very quiet, even quieter than an EV, and would also send a pedestrian flying on collision.
The issue is negligible with bicycles since they can generally avoid distracted pedestrians unlike cars, and even then they are equipped with bells for that specific purpose.
I don't see how they are different in this case. Pedestrians need to watch out, whether it's a car or a bike, and with bikes, they already learned that they are silent. Cars being more quiet doesn't make them more dangerous then.
You understand you are talking to humans here, right? Actual humans, who perform a lot of actions "on autopilot", without consciously thinking about them, and who may have deeply ingrained habits which are very, very hard to change?
Right, but the problem is, it's unsafe to rely on sound in this manner to begin with, regardless of car noise levels.
Sound can only be used for positive identification - if you can hear a car, it's there. It cannot be used for negative identification - if you can't hear a vehicle, it doesn't mean anything.
This is because there are far too many factors that are at play when it comes to the ability to hear:
- Not every dangerous vehicle makes appreciable sound - an ICE car with its engine off, an EV, a bike, any other small personal transportation device, even a skateboard
- The sound may be masked by another, louder sound
- The sound may seem to come from a different direction, there's no telling how the surrounding environment will reflect the sound around before it's reaches one's ears
- The human crossing may, like you point out, be on autopilot, distracted, or otherwise not perceptive to sound
Because of these, and likely more, factors relying on sound when crossing the street is a horrible idea and will get you killed.
I cannot emphasize this enough, looking both ways when crossing *is mandatory*!
In cities (especially dense, old European cities), IC cars makes most of the noise when they accelerate after a stop at the crossroads, pedestrian crossing etc. EVs or even hybrids make a big difference in such conditions. Not to mention, on a quiet street, even a single IC car passing changes the sound aura of the place completely - whereas, with EVs, you just get a quiet hum.
Yeah EVs are significantly quieter in cities where they're going slowly and tyre noise is relatively low.
Not going to make as much difference if you live near a motorway though since the tyre noise there is really really loud. (I still think it might make some difference though because engines going at 70mph are really loud too.)
