"Taycan Crash! Do Electric Cars Need To Be Noisier To Avoid Accidents?" - Article link

[Tooney]

https://www.topgear.com/long-term-car-reviews/porsche/taycan/420kw-4s-93kwh-4dr-auto/report-2

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[f1eng]

I don't see laws as a solution to this sort of mistake.
A Rolls-Royce is probably at least as quiet as a Taycan at that speed.

I see pedestrians, joggers and cyclists go about their activity wearing ear buds, most of which will not have a "transparency" setting to hear environmental noise. The users in question presumably don't feel vulnerable like this. I did, and only tried it once.

As long as this is permitted legislating noise from EVs is a nonsense IMO.

 

[@lpher]

The legislation that we have is IMO more than adequate....and speaking from personal experience from a country where the density of electrical vehicles is insanely high....as a pedestrian you have to adapt...and off course the same goes for mopedists and cyclists and the likes as well.

Not hearing an obcatcle on the road, shouldnt be an excuse for not seeing it in the first place

 

[Kingske]

The current laws make sense and are sufficient. Everybody, including moped users, will need to adjust their behavior to the ICE-to-EV transition. Let’s not forget that EVs not only reduce air pollution but also noise pollution. Arbitrarily eliminating the latter societal benefit would be a shame.

 

[raharris]

This is why we have eyes!

EV or no-EV, another car driver, with windows up and radio on wouldn’t hear most cars at such a casual pace - would a moped rider with a helmet and his own engine have heard a small ICE vehicle?

this firmly seems like driver error on the part of the moped rider to me.

 

[gnop1950]

This is why we have eyes!

EV or no-EV, another car driver, with windows up and radio on wouldn’t here most cars at such a casual pace - how much would a moped rider with a helmet and his own engine have heard a small ICE vehicle?

this firmly seems like driver error on the part of the moped rider to me.

I'm glad everyone was alright, but I agree, this was on the moped driver. I mean the moped came out from between two parked cars and obviously did not look to see if there was oncoming traffic. There is no substitute for "looking" for oncoming traffic.

 

[RinOC]

In the early days of cars the law required a man walking in front of the car with a lantern to warn of its approach. We need to bring that back but with a Tesla Robot (coming soon! Honest!!) capable of running at least 150 mph in front of the car.

 

[Vercingetorix]

In my former place of employment our vehicles were hit all the time. On more than one occasion our vehicles were hit while parked and our driver would be honking their horns to warn the other driver they were going to hit another vehicle. In most cases the other driver heard the horn, but didn’t think it was being directed at them. Adding more noise is not going to help people pay more attention, it will be ignored.

 

[Dave777]

Fortunately no one was hurt. The “noise” issue is irrelevant here. A moped operator wearing a helmet (one assumes), wouldnt have heard most vehicles doing 20kph…or perhaps a bicycle for that matter. Looking ? and paying attention is the key.

 

[dpjrichards]

Having driven an electric car for a couple of years now, I find it’s only when I’m driving really slow (under 15mph) and the car is actually making that acoustic sound that people don’t notice you. The road roar is quite load above that speed especially on wide tyres.

To be honest though, I’m not convinced any amount of noise is going to help people who aren’t noticing a 2m wide 5m long Porsche with day time running lights on coming towards you!

 

[W1NGE]

https://www.topgear.com/long-term-car-reviews/porsche/taycan/420kw-4s-93kwh-4dr-auto/report-2

At least the pedestrian pre-safe system worked to protect the unfortunate pedestrian / moped rider

This looks like a 20mph zone and likely no vehicle would make much noise - tyre rumble would be noticeable on all cars and possibly over and above the Taycan EV pedestrian sound.

As this incident was with a moped - rider with a helmet on a noisy two stroke - not sure they would have heard any vehicle.

There will be many more similar incidents with ICE vehicles but as its an EV people are looking to find issue.

 

[whitex]

Somehow today everything must be someone else's fault, the society, the product manufacturer, the parents, the teachers, the politicians, bad genes, you name it.

I miss the days of personal responsibility.

 

[whitex]

Having driven an electric car for a couple of years now, I find it’s only when I’m driving really slow (under 15mph) and the car is actually making that acoustic sound that people don’t notice you. The road roar is quite load above that speed especially on wide tyres.

To be honest though, I’m not convinced any amount of noise is going to help people who aren’t noticing a 2m wide 5m long Porsche with day time running lights on coming towards you!

There is no way you can reasonably generate enough noise to overpower every moped, quad, dirt bike, or other vehicles that people ride around on. There are some kids in my neighborhood riding around on two-stroke quads and dirt-bikes, I'd have to get a freaking fog horn, or a heavy machine gun firing blanks continuously mounted on my EV for them to hear me and recognize the noise as dangerous (which is needed, as per the article). I'm also certain that would violate many noise ordinances in different places.

I think what the author of the article and the driver of that Taycan is completely missing, is that mopeds crash into ICE vehicles all the time too. Just because this one happened to crash into a Taycan, doesn't mean that it was caused by the fact that it was an EV. How about the color of the vehicle, is the owner of that Taycan willing to paint his canary yellow with red warning stripes, add some flags to waive in the wind, on the chance that this increased visibility could have avoided this accident?

 

[Evnoob]

And sometimes, it’s the fault of Gelato!

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