Sounds of the Times

Imagine you’re a child and you’re riding in the back seat of a car at night. You watch the trees passing by you through the window, and then you close your eyes so you can feel the vibrations through the seat. All the while the engine softly rumbles all around you, surrounding you like a blanket. Over half of parents surveyed said they’ve used “dream drives,” taking their children on a drive at night just to help them fall asleep. But what if you’re driving an electric vehicle? Would it still have that soothing rumble? Last year Nissan partnered with Tom Middleton to find a way to preserve this timeless experience in the Nissan LEAF, an electric car that would normally be completely silent. To help the LEAF sound and feel more like an old-fashioned car, Middleton created an ambient album of combustion engine sounds called the “Nissan Leaf Dream Drive” that’s available on Spotify, Google Play and other platforms. To learn more about it, just click the link below: https://www.edelman.com/work/nissan-dream-drive (https://www.edelman.com/work/nissan-dream-drive) This isn’t the first time sounds have been added to electric vehicles to make them seem more familiar, and it won’t be the last. A new EU law mandates that by this July all hybrid and electric vehicles will need an “acoustic vehicle alert system” to make sure pedestrians can hear approaching vehicles. Those sounds are required to resemble a gasoline engine, and to scale up and down with the vehicle’s speed. A similar “quiet car” law will take effect in the United States this March, after a six-month extension. Electric cars are just one example of how new technology is changing many of the sounds we take for granted, and how we’re working to bring those sounds back in new ways. You may have heard of the “coconut effect,” especially if you’re a fan of old westerns or a certain Monty Python movie. Whether it’s coconut shells clapping to imitate galloping horses, or the squealing tires during every car chase, or whirring, beeping computers, there are sounds