Can an enhanced driving experience still be authentic?

I'm just happy to see someone beat Dodge to the market!  Dodge promised their EVs would have Hellcat like sounds as well.  
 

If I ever see one of these local and on a lot, I may give it a test drive.  I'm curious.

VolvoHeretic said:

I want turbo pop off valve noises every time I lift off the throttle.

I want compressor surge noises.

Part of the reason I liked playing Network Q RAC Rally Championship was the (ex-squirt) Cosworth, and ONLY that car, made the most amusing turbo chatter sounds like a real Garrett spinning at full steam into a closed throttle.  The Subaru was faster and more reliable but the Cossie made me giggle.  Because I could make it giggle, I suppose 

I would need it to sound like the Jetson's flying car.

Haven't manufacturers used artificial sound pumped through the speakers to 'enhance' the driving experience of ICE cars for a while now?

BMW comes to mind, and my not exactly stellar memory insists that a LOT of other manufacturers do the same. Either because of dull sounding engines, DB limits or just too much sound deadening in the cabin. 

In reply to Piguin :

Yea and they all suck. 

In reply to bobzilla :

I can understand, though.  Between turbocharging and variable valve lift/variable valve timing destroying glorious intake noises, sound regulations destroying exhaust notes, and timing chains and direct injection making engines sound like a threshing machine, I'd want to cover that garbage up with something that sounds more pleasant, too.

A lot of the good engine sounds are intake noises.  Watch Ronin, you hear muted exhaust, muted engine mechanical whirr, intake honk.  Find and watch the original "Getaway in Stockholm", to experience a flat six with a fairly quiet exhaust breathing through a pair of unmuffled 48 IDA 3 carburetors.  Absolutely glorious.  Loud exhausts sound low-rent, the essence is the intake!

I vote no. I want to hear and feel the car and what its saying. I autocross, some guys pop in their favorite music selection for the run, crank it up and launch. I find it distracting. I need to hear the car talking to me. Although one interesting thing I have experienced, passengers have been screaming their heads off on ride alongs and I really don't hear it. A favorite soundtrack seems to make my brain lock in on it. In fact I find the "quiet" EV experience sort of like silently stalking the competition. I'm coming to get you, the body still feels what's happening, seat of the pants doesn't lie.

Even though my motto is, "If you can't make it faster, make it louder." I still want my mini van, truck, and my boat as quiet at it can get. Battery electric cars should have to have back up beepers sounding while going forwards. (I was almost run over by a Prius because I couldn't hear it.)

bobzilla said:

In reply to Piguin :

Yea and they all suck. 

My only (current) regret is that I have but one upvote to give for this post.

Trying to pipe engine noises into an EV is just admitting you can't make EVs sound cool. 

Let the EV's cool sounds be heard by the driver, electric motor noises were half the reason I was willing to give EVs a chance. 

I don't mind new flavors as long as they're authentic, I hate artificial flavors. 

As for everything else, yeah, okay, steering and braking and traction controls are going to come around but don't waste time, money (which turns into cost for me), and brainpower on trying to make the sensory changes they affect go away.

As matter of fact, no one does because it would be immensely wasteful and expensive. So canned/pipes sounds are the easy way out of building a car you're not willing to make anymore.  

Seems almost patronizing now. 

i just cant wait to explain to my grandkids when only EVs are on the road that the fake exhaust noise is a throwback to the noises made by old archaic cars during operation of burning gasoline

In reply to StuntmanMike :

I'm reminded of my friend, the former high school teacher, relating being asked by kids why the "save" button looks like this:

Hollywood already gave us the perfect soundtrack for a Tesla:

In reply to Duke :

Agree.  There are rock group(s) today that perform live to backing tracks.  It is now, or soon will be possible to go to a concert where the performer or band is an AI generated hologram performing to an AI composed and generated musical score - no actual instruments or voices used.  Might we as a society embrace this "experience?"  Probably - but that doesn't mean we have to confuse the faux with the real.  Do we really want GRM to publish articles on how to add or upgrade better sounding exhaust speakers to your EV race car?  Really?

In reply to Noddaz :

Milenium Falcon.

In reply to chandler :

Authentically faux.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :  Ha.  We replaced a short piece of the cold air intake tract on my wife's 2011 GT 500 because Ford had installed a section of muffler to quiet the intake.  We substituted a Ford Racing supplied part sans the muffler.  Ahhhh. 

Just revisited this after seeing it in dead tree form...

If it's a synthesized facsimile, it's not authentically the thing it's a facsimile of. It may be authentically that facsimile, and may be worthwhile, but it isn't authentic in the same way as the original. I don't know who did the song, but the lyrics I recall are "It's not imitation anything; it's real plastic!"

It rankles a bit to have concern over actuality lumped in with the sort of authenticity fetish that's been around for a while, which in itself goes so bonkers over handwork and signs of human involvement that it elevates stuff that's totally contrived rather than authentic. All I'm saying is "make an electric drill sound like the angry device it is, not like an Evinrude or a voice actor going 'bzzzzzzzz'." Laying synthesized sounds over a different experience is like spraying potpourri scent in the bathroom. Sound *is* important, but don't build a car so devoid of feedback it needs a sine wave tone to tell you current speed, which of course can be subbed for any other sound with pitch mapped to velocity.

If a car is devoid of any character and fake sounds help people adapt to it, fine. That's not, however, equivalent to that being as good as having an intrinsically interesting car that doesn't make V8 noise. In the case of a car like the Ioniq N, which seems targeted at being a genunely engaging vehicle and not a transportation pod void of feel, I think fake sound makes no sense and they should've just solid-mounted more of the mechanical bits. Maybe they need to bring the magnetorheological tech in for motor mounts, so "sport" mode basically firms up the connection for all senses.

If it doesn't make it faster, what's the point. 

In reply to rssmithiq :

Visceral sensory experience is helluva drug.

The good stuff.

I happen to love s/c whine and once I was researching how to make it louder in-cabin then discovered amongst the muslecar crowd something they do with "sound tubes" which is cool I think but still haven't done it on my car...

...and will have no shame if I ever do it either!

AndyHess said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :  Ha.  We replaced a short piece of the cold air intake tract on my wife's 2011 GT 500 because Ford had installed a section of muffler to quiet the intake.  We substituted a Ford Racing supplied part sans the muffler.  Ahhhh. 

Those actually can serve a performance purpose on a MAF car.  Sound is resonance and some resonances can make the MAF reading go screwy.

We tried replacing the (anti) resonance chamber in a ZX2 with a straight tube and were rewarded with a big torque hole in the midrange right where a variable cam Zetec should be happiest.  That lasted one trip around the block.

Presumably if there is a Ford supplied part, they have a workaround, or the thing actually was just a noise muffler and not a MAF-signal-enhappifier.

I will have to experience it before I say whether or not it would be "cool" to have the virtual sound of a V8 engine or any other sound enhancement is worthy of the title of, "cool"...

I heard a model T start up the other day. I want my EV to mimic that noise. Just to see the looks on people's faces.  
 

I think I would put a crank on it that when you "crank it over" It starts the sound track. 

In reply to dean1484 :

I'd be on board with that.

Model T's ... hmm, I wonder how many of the original owners wished their Tin Lizzie's sounded like the horses that got replaced.  
I know my grandpa and dad never mentioned it.