Fake EV engine noises are worryingly unconvincing

It’s been a hot topic for a few years and while the technology and its implementation have certainly progressed, I still wonder about the role augmented or ‘fake’ engine noises have to play in electric cars. 

For starters there’s the wonderful Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, which has shown how useful audible communication of a car’s gearing and speed can be in an otherwise silent EV. Most of us need that extra layer of feedback while driving (especially if you’re driving spiritedly), to help process what the car is doing - whether that’s real-time deceleration or acceleration. 

The Ioniq 5 N does this effectively, although it falls short of the mark in its aim to mimic the i30 N’s build-up to its 8,000rpm rev limit. Indeed, while fake engine sounds and gearshifts can certainly boost driver engagement, I’ve yet to come across an EV (or an EV’s speaker system for that matter) that can convincingly mimic a combustion engine. 

Recently, we got wind of BMW’s HypersonX system that’ll arrive on its upcoming Neue Klasse models. However, the “unique soundscape”, as BMW calls it, won’t try to recreate combustion-engine noises. It’ll go down a different route with “tones from nature” and “structures from the worlds of art and science”, whatever that means. 

BMW does say HypersonX will “embody the pleasure of driving for which BMW is renowned”, but I understand why they’re not trying to recreate a vibrant straight-six through a set of speakers. First off, the purists will be lying in wait to scold whatever BMW attempts, and secondly I just can’t see how sound development will progress in a couple of years to allow it. 

Then there’s the big one – Ferrari. The firm behind some of the best-sounding engines in the automotive industry submitted a patent this week for ‘audio files’ in its inaugural EV, due later this year. Ferrari does quite nobly point out the extra levels of driver involvement you get with engine noise, but going beyond this to somehow replicate ‘historical’ Ferrari engine and exhaust notes will be equal parts fascinating and worrying. If Ferrari, coming from a country that gave us Bocelli and Pavarotti, fails, then what hope do the rest have? If Ferrari’s audio partner, Bang and Olufsen, has been officially tasked with boosting the new EV’s sound, then it’ll have quite the task on its hands. 

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