h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The do make some noise-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWg8Sib6rIs

Perhaps if we were to amplify that?

Pup, pup, pup, pup, Help! Where's the nearest power point?!!!

There are two questions implied here:

1. What sound SHOULD they make (i.e. what sound would make the most practical sense given the constraints and requirements)

2. What sound would you like yours to make?

I've given some thought to this over the years and my considered engineer-with-an-interest-in-human-interface-design opinion is: horse's hooves. If your car is otherwise silent, make it make the sound a horse would make.

Specifically, make it make the sound a horse would make on the surface you're on, at the speed you're moving. Standing still, it would make the occasionally randomly timed whinny or snort. Moving slowly, it would make a sedate clip-clop. Trundling along at 30 it would make a cantering sound and beyond that a thundering gallop noise. Additionally, I'd have the volume inversely proportional to the speed. At 30mph, there are likely to be pedestrians around, who will need to hear the sound. If you're doing sixty, you should only be doing so in areas where pedestrians are unlikely, so the sound could be toned down. I'd remove this adjustment from emergency service vehicles.

The advantage is that everyone instinctively understands the implications of the sound of horse's hooves - something large is coming, and you can judge the speed of its approach even if you can't see it. Plus it's got a nicely retro feel.

As for what I'd LIKE - it would have to be the whining roar of a TIE fighter engine. Or the TARDIS sound.

TIE fighter! Ace!

+1

FB

Wouldn't having a car that sounds like a horse be dangerous to horses, where they share the road?

Why? A horse would be LESS likely to be startled, wouldn't it?

Also, don't get me started on them sharing the road - horses should not be on the road unless they're inside a horsebox. It's 2011, for Bod's sake. Horses belong on bridleways and in fields, not on metalled roads where there are cars. Riding horses on a road should be illegal.

It depends what horsey phrase you've programmed into the car. While you're waiting at a signal your vehicle might be announcing to the equine world that it's on heat.

I live in the New forest, so we have horses all over the roads. If I hear a horse walk up behind me, I know it is safe to ignore it unless I am eating an ice-cream. Horses will always walk around people, cars generally may not.

If electric cars sound like any other thing in the environment, then there is a risk that they will be treated in the same way. If I hear a train, I check I'm not standing on rails and then consider myself safe. Whatever the noise is, and I favour the noise of a model-A Ford, it must be standardised, otherwise we will have a century of people driving around making the most ridiculous noises imaginable, including some of the dangerous ones I've already mentioned. The only possible reason to make a car sound like something else is so that the self-satisfied owners can advertise their 'green' credentials everywhere they go.

I think they should go: "Powweeeerrr!" in the voice of Jeremy Clarkson.

B

How about live noise? Put a microphone
nefore the driver and let him sing or something.

Detection and locating are by the first wavefront, umpteen thousand times per second. A microcar with the sound of churchbells would be a menace.

And priest would go complaining.

Ooh! A karaokemobile. I like that. And if someone was in the way, the driver could say Beep-beep.

(my last @ Interestman)

Actually...shouldn't hydrogen cars make a squeaky pop?

"Pop" is hydrogen - hey, you weren´t asleep in Chemistry lesson!

They should have an AI in them that says things according to the situation it is in, like "Watch it!"when someone makes an error or something. Or they could tell jokes. I like the idea of a personalized car.

"could tell jokes" - thanks, but no. Three motorbikes totalled and twice in hospital because the drivers had their attention everywhere but on the road.
(Still alive, though. And I love s.)

Maybe they could shout words like **** and ******.

"gerroutofmywayyoublindeejit"?