Electric/Hybrid Cars News

Electric and/or hybrid cars are getting very popular these days. One of my co-worker recently purchased a Toyota Prius and he had to wait more than a month to get one due to demand. He was suppose to pick it up for last week’s long weekend trip (Civic Holiday) in Canada but he was unable to.

Anyway enough of my friend.

More car companies are getting into the electric/hybrid market, they realize people looking for new cars will be looking for something less gas-thirsty or people that want to replace the existing with a better fuel consumption vehicle. Nissan recently announced it will start promoting and selling its electric car in 2010 in Japan and US. And in Israel and Denmark in 2011. Globally in 2012. Its about time Nissan jumps in because it has fallen behind Toyota and Honda in hybrids.

Hopefully the price of owning an electric or hybrid cars will decrease as they gain more popularity so that buyers can start benefiting from better fuel consumption.

Aside from better fuel consumption, electric and even hybrid cars are very quiet. That is both good and bad in my opinion. On one hand, its good because some buyers prefer having a quieter interior, some people actually hate the engine roaring sound, my mom for example. On the other hand, this quietness can also be negative. For one, for car enthusiasts, engine sound is like music to them, I’m one of them. Eliminating the engine sound is like taking away a piece from driving the car, its just boring without the engine sound when revving it up. Sort of like watching a movie with no one talking. Then there is safety issues as well, and I think this one is actually a problem. These electric and hybrid cars will be so quiet, pedestrians, specially the visually impaired, they will have much harder time knowing there are actually cars near them.

Lotus is developing a technology called the Lotus Sound Synthesis consisting of a 300-watt speaker, a throttle position sensor, amplifier and synthesis controller. which will create artificial engine noise to remedy the quietness.

I wonder how natural it will actually sound.

Image from: DailyTech.com

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 9:11 pm