Skip to footer

Rules for quiet electric cars have to be delayed, automakers say

Rules for quiet hybrid and electric cars to have alert noises aren't ready yet. Thus, automakers are urging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to delay the rules for quiet electric cars.

|
George Frey/Reuters/File
Justin Miller makes a phone call as he charges his 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car. Rules for quiet hybrid and electric cars to have alert noises aren't ready yet, so automakers are urging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to delay the rules.

The concern that very quiet hybrid and electric cars may pose a danger to unaware pedestrians has been around for a decade or more now.

Back in 2010, Congress required the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to develop rules for adding alert noises to cars running on silent electric power.

The law was adopted at the urging of the National Federation for the Blind, among other groups.

But those rules, due back in January, aren't ready. So automakers have stepped forward to urge a delay in the schedule that requires them to start phasing in the devices for 2016.

According to The Detroit News, a pair of auto-industry lobbying groups – the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and Association of Global Automakers – jointly issued a letter urging NHTSA to postpone full compliance until September 1, 2018.

That's because not only are the rules due on January 4 lagging, but "it is apparent that there remains a great deal of uncertainty as to the content of the final requirements," according to the groups.

The NHTSA had proposed rules in January 2013 that the groups said then would "result in alert sounds that are louder than necessary, create driver and occupant annoyance and cost more than necessary.”

The agency suggested that hybrid and electric cars running only on electricity should produce a sound at speeds up to 18.6 mph. It even published a list of possible sounds at different volumes.

As usual, automakers claim that the costs of compliance estimated by the Federal agency – $35 per car to add a noise generator and a speaker system – are far too low. The real figure could be five times that number, say the lobbying groups.

Various electric cars already on the market – including the Nissan Leaf, the highest-selling battery electric vehicle in the US – already have an alert noise built in. In the Leaf's case, it's a sort of chirping sound.

The Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car has a driver-actuated alert noise, triggered by pulling back on the indicator stalk.

It's not clear that there's substantial data supporting the need for such noise-making devices, although a preliminary study in 2009 appeared to indicate that hybrids had a higher rate of pedestrian and cyclist collisions than non-hybrids.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Rules for quiet electric cars have to be delayed, automakers say
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2014/0726/Rules-for-quiet-electric-cars-have-to-be-delayed-automakers-say
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe