Lotus' Safe and Sound technology gives hybrids a voice
By Darren Murph 
posted August 7th 2008 1:58AM
posted August 7th 2008 1:58AM
[Via Wired]
posted August 7th 2008 1:58AM
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hm.. I think it kinda defeats the purpose of having a hybrid/electric car... but ofc if it's for safety....
but what about a high pitched sound for the dog to hear?
I like this idea. I actually thought of it before, for the same safety reasons.
I must find someone to sue.
Hasn't this (well, a similar system) been on Pimp my Ride a while ago? Some sort of system where you could choose between like a Ferrari 355, a Ferrari Enzo, a Porsche 911, a Cobra, a Mustang, ...
What about gear shifts? If there are no such sounds it will sound unrealistic. And will it blip during "downshifts"?
Seems kinda pointless how much noise it makes in the name of "Pedestrian safety".
I still get people walk out in the road all the time regardless of having a VERY loud can on my Buell, they still don't hear it. Its usually cyclists with their ipods on and earbuds rammed into their heads, they can't hear anything at all and think they don't need to check before jumping off the kerb into the traffic.
Natural selection... Most natural predators don't make a peep before they attack, the ones that survive tend to be the healthy ones... It's better for everybody... Let's take the same approach to cars! Those that don't look where they walk should be weeded out naturally... We really DON'T need to maintain the current noise levels of cars...
's like I said.
Harsh, but fair.
's just like I said.
Harsh, but fair.
that's incredibly naive.
Modern Medicine has long ago totally removed any "natural selection" process from human reproduction.
thinking that brutally killing a few blind people and kids in horrible painful car/pedestrian altercations will somehow "strengthen the gene pool" is childish at best.
Imagine your mother (or wife, or son) is or becomes a little visually impaired. Now are you so willing to throw your mom, or your wife, or your child out in front of a car? Even if you are an inhumanly disgusting bastard who is willing to watch their kid get messily killed by a strangers car - are you also so much of a prick as to want to more or less ruin this total stranger's life by making them feel forever guilty about KILLING an innocent kid?
if that sounds like you, why don't you just go out and start murdering people? ...or i have an even better idea: go out and get the book, "Mein Kampf".
I agree with you encosion. I wrote a very long comment about this, then I decided it would probably get me banned from this website. So I refrained.
After air pollution, noise pollution is the worst feature of conventional cars. How hellish to lobby governments to introduce laws to artificially produce it. Electric and hybrid cars do make noise in motion and our ears will soon be become attuned and used to detecting a lower and a different sound. Installing more pedestrian crossings would help the visually impaired, who generally have developed more acute hearing anyway.
"the visually impaired, who generally have developed more acute hearing anyway."
Now THERE'S a fucking patronising statement if ever there was one.
Shame on you.
I still contend it should sound like George Jetson's car.
totally.
why settle for making it sound like old-fashioned internal-combustion engines when there are so many other noises to choose?
Honda can trademark the jetson car noise, while toyota strikes up a deal with Lucas to use the ti-fighter noise (or whatever space ship made a cool noise in starwars... i'm sure there must have been one.)
then even the visually impaired could say "did you hear that sweet Lexus that just passed?"
:)
That's EXACTLY what it should sound like!
I don't understand the demonstration. I know they are saying that a blind person would have trouble hearing a Prius, but are they implying a dog will walk you into the way of a car making little noise?
I would be more worried about the stupid amount of electricity that would be used to make this noise? These things dont run for thousands of miles on a single charge (yet) !
We finally can build cars that make very little noise, and now we're going to have them make noise on purpose??? I understand the issue, but the solution is for people (and the assistant dogs) to start looking more and depending less on their ears. I wonder if when the first automobiles came along, and were traveling much faster than carriages, if someone suggested, "How about we put regulators on automobiles so they can go no faster than carriages so that I don't have to change my street-crossing behavior"? I hope not. Instead people recognized that things had changed, and they had to anticipate differently the speed of the car when crossing the street. People need to get used to the changing technology, not stifle it in the name of convenience.
SUCH a crap idea, far better to insist that all electronic vehicles sport a directional proximity transmitter and that blind people carry a receiver. It is mad to CREATE noise pollution for the tiny proportion of the populace that is blind, and the rest of us will learn to LOOK. How many people ever got run down by electric milk floats? Probably ZERO!!!
Would that be down to the fact that the majority of electric milk floats were only on the road in the wee small hours of the morning when most people were still in bed.
Or the fact that their payload had a distinct tendency to rattle rather noisily.
BTW, I can't recall the last time I actually saw milk being delivered door to door.
We finally can build cars that make very little noise, and now we're going to have them make noise on purpose??? I understand the issue, but the solution is for people (and the assistant dogs) to start looking more and depending less on their ears. I wonder if when the first automobiles came along, and were traveling much faster than carriages, if someone suggested, "How about we put regulators on automobiles so they can go no faster than carriages so that I don't have to change my street-crossing behavior"? I hope not. Instead people recognized that things had changed, and they had to anticipate differently the speed of the car when crossing the street. People need to get used to the changing technology, not stifle it in the name of convenience.
Did you really just suggest that blind people start *looking* more? Classic!
I'd want the sound of the Mystery Machine. Especially from the episode where it slips on a banana peel while driving on a dock. I also wouldn't mind playing something like the Jingle Cats to drive around the neighborhoods of people I hate.
This is one of those issues I really am sad to say needs to be fixed. To me, the quietness of a hybrid car is part of the charm of buying them, and artificially adding noise seems kinda crappy... But people have to hear the car... So I guess this needs to be done.... Although I'd like to see some statistical information showing that there have been an increase in injuries/fatalities due to hybrid vehicles running people over before I completely jump on....
does it come with a giant rubber strap on penis for the driver too?
These things have been around for ages, can't find a link but they look a lot like a car amp and you hook them up to external speakers so your badly modded Vauxhall Corsa with a silly body kit sounds like a DB9 ;)
couldn't they just use playing cards, or crushed coke cans... remember, like when we would try to make our bikes sound like bad ass motorcycles!!!!
Lotus and electronics just do not mix.