newatlas.com/eu-ev-acoustic-noise-avas/60022/
EU laws requiring audible warning sounds for electric cars to take effect July 1.
From July 1, any electric vehicle with four or more wheels that wants to be approved for road use in the European Union is going to have to have an “Acoustic Vehicle Alert System,” or AVAS, fitted, making a continuous noise of at least 56 decibels if the car’s going 20 km/h (12 mph) or slower.
Pedestrians will have fewer reasons than ever to look up from their smartphone screens as they step out into European traffic, after Uniform Provisions Concerning the Approval of Quiet Road Transport Vehicles with Regard to their Reduced Audibility become EU law in a few weeks.
Designed to address the public’s fear of quiet electric vehicles, the new laws require cars – not motorcycles – to make some kind of noise at slower speeds. The noise, which isn’t prescribed to be any particular sound, must rise and fall in pitch to signal whether the vehicle is accelerating or decelerating.
Fifty-six decibels isn’t particularly loud, mercifully – it’s about the sound level of a running air con unit or electric toothbrush. A diesel truck, for example, will make about 85 decibels when it passes, and the rules state that the warning sounds can’t be any louder than 75 decibels, or about the noise level of a regular dinosaur burning car. So the AVAS systems will make no difference at all to people who walk around with earphones in.
If you go to the article it has examples of what they’ll sound like from Jaguar, BMW and Leaf. All I’ll say is I don’t think I’d be buying a Jag or a Leaf unless you’re the kind of person who is a bit, how shall we say, quirky. Definitely 2 paper bag job.
