BMW Is Making Electric Cars, But It Has No Idea How They Should Sound
by Nigel Hilton
Talk about first-world problems. BMW is trying to figure out how electric cars should sound to keep them safe on the road. And now it’s hiring Lion King composer, Hans Zimmer, to help out.
Currently, the EV market faces a bit of a problem. The industry is trying to introduce cars to the public that sound fundamentally different from regular internal combustion engine vehicles. For the most part, EVs are silent, with the only noise they make coming from the sound of their rubber tires rolling on the road.
But, unfortunately, the vast majority of people alive today grew up in a world where the only electric vehicles on the road were milk floats. So when they cross the street, they instinctively use their ears to listen for oncoming traffic. If there’s no sound, they proceed to cross the street.
And it’s this behavioural quirk that’s got bosses at BMW worried. They know that if they start churning out EVs by the millions, the number of pedestrian casualties will probably rise.
The solution, in their view, is to give electric cars a sound. But what sound? That’s the question.
Nobody wants EVs going around, blasting out the Lion King theme tune at full volume, warning people of their approach. That would get annoying quickly. So Zimmer and the team are trying to come up with a new sound that will alert people, but not get on their nerves.
Ideally, customers would like their cars to produce no sound at all to reduce noise pollution. But because of the nature of our cities and the fact that people don’t always look when they cross the road, that’s not an option. Instead, BMW - as well as all the other car manufacturers - are having to come up with a robust solutions to the problem. BMW also needs solutions to the part of that process that involves upgrading its BMW brakes. BMW electric vehicle brakes must manage the electric motor's weight and torque. Not only that, but they need to be able to stop the electric car with the force that the battery requires.
So what have they come up with? Well, essentially, they’re trying to improve on the sounds of the brand’s petrol engines. They want something, accotrding to the lead designers, that expresses both “force” and “grandness,” ultimately giving electric vehicles more depth. What they don’t want is the major sound to be the tepid whine of the electric motors - that’s just not sexy.
Whether these audible BMW accessories will be a hit with drivers remains to be seen. Enthusiast purchasers of the brand’s luxury vehicles worry that EV versions won’t have the same bite as their predecessors, and that it will detract from the overall quality of the vehicle.
Another question relates to whether Hans Zimmer and the team will standardize sounds across vehicles. The current thinking is that they probably won’t because that would make it harder for them to differentiate their products. But it is a strange concept to think that models down the lower end of the range will produce deliberately weedier noises than their more expensive brothers and sisters.
How other carmakers will respond to this remains to be seen. BMW is clearly going high-profile with the hiring of Hans Zimmer to provide the soundtrack to its vehicles. Let’s hope that they sound as good as the movies themselves.